Xenosaga: The Forgotten
by TakatoRikku
Summary: A mysterious man falls from the sky and into Shion's lap shortly after the beginning of what is Episode III. Who is he really and what do his double pasts mean for the universe, and his connection with KOSMOS as well?
1. Unexpected Drop In

Just trying out a Xenosaga fan fiction. This is an AU EpIII in case you were wondering. As usual, I love OC insertions, so beware, but at least he's not white-haired this time lol. Review if you like, don't if you don't.

Disclaimer: I don't own Namco, Bandai, Xenosaga or any of the characters except for my OC and his A.M.W.S.. However I do wish that someday advanced cloning and genetic engineering will let me have my own Shion for nefarious bondage deeds!

This story is rated M, as my usual. It will probably involve swearing, violence, blood, maybe some gore (but I doubt it) and sexual situations, but no lemons. I plan to have it end around 15 chapters or less, since I enjoy writing short stories. The main characters are as follow:

Shion Uzuki: The main heroine of the series, she's spent the last 6 months working with Scientia to find out more about Vector and her father's involvement. She's got brown hair in a unique hairstyle, bright green eyes and the cutest face this author has ever seen. Not to mention a body to die for. And who cares if it's all polygons?! She's about 21-22 years of age.

Cerberos: The mysterious young man who fell out of the sky and into Shion's lap. Not much is known about him in the beginning, but he harbors a dark past, and an even darker past-past life. He has amnesia about his past-past and doesn't remember a thing. He gains Shion's affection with his sweet nature and often doting attitude towards her. He has black hair that falls to his neck and is swept backwards with unique crimson eyes with a black halo ring between the iris and pupil. He appears to be in his very early 20's at least.

KOS-MOS: An android built to combat Gnosis, she was Kevin Winnicot and Shion's brainchild, so to speak. She has an unknown purpose in this saga, which will be revealed further on. Incredibly enough, she and Cerberos share a much deeper connection than she and chaos do. She had straight blue hair that reaches down to her ankles and the same crimson eyes that Cerberos has. She has the appearance of an 18 year old woman.

The other characters from Xenosaga are of course involved as well, but those three are the most important.

* * *

**Xenosaga**

**The Forgotten**

_Unexpected drop-in_

Shion sighed as she turned her comm device off and placed it back into its sheath that was clipped onto the waist of her swimsuit. Hopefully Miyuki would study hard and understand the concepts concerning the U.M.N. and Vector. Stretching out, she laced her delicate fingers together and cracked her knuckles nicely, eliciting a small moan of pleasure from her action. No doubt her katana-wielding brother Jin would dissaprove of such an unlady-like action, but she never listened to him much anyways.

Shion walked away from her little alcove where her E.S. Dinah was parked in front of her make-shift base camp. She headed down the pathway to the beach, where white sands and blue water awaited her. There was a beach chair and umbrella off in the distance to her right, and some rock formations in the shallow waters ahead. This island she was on, on this completely empty planet was very pretty. She looked up to the clear sunny skies and smiled as the sun's rays warmed her face. A glint in the sky caught her attention.

"Oh?" she wondered, squinting at the glint, which was sparkling off in the distance above her. "What's that?"

It got bigger and bigger until Shion could make out an egg-shaped object, that was a gleaming silverish-white color, and it was descending from space rapidly. Could it be an escape pod of some sort? If so, it didn't look like anything from Vector, the Immigrant Fleet or Ormus. She watched in horror as whatever it was slammed into the water a few miles out, kicking up a wickedly tall tidal wave, which fortunately receded into harsh waves once it reached the shoreline. Breaking out into a run, Shion began to splash through the clear blue waters in an effort to see if there was anyone inside that thing.

It took her nearly half an hour, and a lot of swimming, but luckily for her the waters were shallow for quite a distance, so the most she had to do was drift and paddle a bit. She reached the large object that fell from the sky and stopped in the water, completely confounded by what she saw.

It was a cocoon of some sort. She could make out a delicate pattern of angular shapes that made up the cocoon's egg-like shape. Even though she called it 'egg-like' it was in fact different, more like 'elongated egg-like'. The bottom part (at least that's what Shion thought it was) had it's point buried into the sand under the water, and it stood up straight at least 40 or 50 feet. She reached out to touch the surface.

"What is this?" she gasped, palming her hand on the cocoon. It had been diamond hard when she touched it, but as soon as her full hand made contact, it suddenly softened to the point of a bird's tuft, or feathers. A loud noise startled Shion, and she stumbled back to land on her butt, as the cocoon made a long series of loud clicking noises. Suddenly, the cocoon exploded outwards, causing Shion to cover her body as a large gust of wind erupted around her, making her fall flat on her back.

When the wind and noise finally stopped, Shion lowered her arms to look at the cocoon, and gasped.

The cocoon had been transformed. It was now spread out both sides in what appeared to be... _angel wings?_ Shion gaped at the sight before her. Inside the cocoon wasn't an escape pod, but in fact an A.M.W.S.!

It was unlike any design she had ever seen in her life before. The head itself was sinister-looking, but at the same time beautiful as it featured four silver 'pupils' that were aligned like a vehicle's headlights. They even had a clear dome covering them, making them appear even more like headlights. The domes could be called the eyeballs, since they were angular like a wide-set but narrow pair of eyes. The head itself was the same silvery-white color of the wings and was also sharp and angular, with what looked like swept-back elf ears, but were most likely the communications and sensor arrays. The head's 'chin' jutted out slightly, making for a rakish look that decidedly made the mobile suit 'male-like' in appearance, as did it's swept back forehead, which featured three swept back prongs, that resembled spiky hair. The center prong was larger than the two on each side of it. Underneath the head unit was a semi-clear neck section, which most definitely housed the pilot and maybe a navigator/co-pilot.

The A.M.W.S.' torso was sleek and sharply angled, with some curves, but it was mostly angular to show an aggressive look to it, which worked. It's arms were comparable to E.S. Dinah's, and each shoulder had what looked like projectile weapons mounted on them. It didn't hold anything in its hands, so it was unarmed, for now. Shion knew that there was a possibility that this suit could teleport weapons like her Dinah could.

The legs were long and shaped similarly to the wings, meaning they were long and a little flat, ending in a point like Dinah's. However, instead of the single point 'toe' that Dinah had, this A.M.W.S.' legs also had a heel point as well. The knees had little wings on them as well, probably to help it stablize or steer in flight. The overall color scheme of the A.M.W.S. was the peculiar silvery-white, with some spots of gold in the joints and minor extremities (such as the finger joints, and some very interesting tribal designs on the body). It was very aggressive and deadly-looking, but decidedly very beautiful in Shion's opinion.

Since opening its impressive 100-foot wingspan (here Shion was totally guessing, but these wings dwarfed even E.S. Dinah's massive wingpsan, which was 80 feet in total) the A.M.W.S. hadn't moved at all. Instead it just stood there, its pointy heeled feet impaled into the ground deeply as it stood there, unmoving.

"Hello?" Shion called nervously. "Is anyone in there?"

No sound or movement. She frowned and knelt to her knees. With a powerful jump, she used a little Ether power to leap up to the suit's shoulder, right next to the glass canopy. She tried to peer inside, but the semi-transparent gold glass showed her nothing but a vague figure inside. She pressed her hands on the canopy and rapped her knuckles on it.

"Helloooo?" she called again, banging on the glass. "Are you okay? Do you need help?"

She screeched as the neck suddenly opened, the entire gold canopy folding downwards as she hopped back onto the shoulder, narrowly avoiding being knocked down. Pressurized oxygen flowed out of the cockpit in a cloud, blocking her vision of the inside as it billowed around her. Waving her hand to clear it up a bit, she moved to the cockpit to see if the person was okay, but a body fell out, knocking her off the suit.

Both people splashed into the water with Shion on the bottom unfortunately, but the soft sand underneath cushioned her fall. Yelping, she sat up, spitting water out of her mouth as she pushed whoever landed her off herself and onto her lap. Shaking the wet brown hair from her face, she blinked a few times to get the water out of her eyes. Feeling movement, Shion looked down.

It was a man, she could tell from the muscular body that was shown off from the somewhat tight-looking clothes. His face was hidden by a wall of black hair that was naturally hanging down to his neck, and slightly swept backwards. He was currently face-down in her lap, in a rather compromising position. Luckily, he seemed to be unconscious, so Shion's virtue was saved, for now. Still, with a red face she grabbed the man's shoulders and hoisted him off her lap, to get a good look at his face.

Shion felt her cheeks warm up. He was incredibly handsome. He had a heart-shaped face with soft, almost effeminate features, but it made him look more rogueishly handsome than 'pretty-boy'. His eyes were closed, but even Shion could tell that they would be large, round and wide when he opened them. He was quite pale, which contrasted nicely with his dark hair, which hung around his face in thick chunky spikes, and they waved in the wind.

"Oh!" Shion said as the man scrunched his eyebrows, looking like he was waking up. "Are you okay?"

His eyelids barely opened, but Shion could make out the color of his irises in that sliver of opening. She gasped.

"Your eyes!" she breathed, as the man's eyelids fluttered some more. "They're like... KOS-MOS!"

His eyes finally opened all the way and he squinted at Shion intently. Or, rather, squinted intently at a certain part of Shion. She felt her cheeks get even hotter as he stared at her chest, which was level with his head at the moment.

"Nice outfit," he said in a soft voice before passing out again.

-----

Shion sighed as she turned the message from Allen off. It had been six months since she had left Vector Industries in her effort to find out the truth about the organization and her late father, and yet she had an aching hole in her heart about it. She missed her friends, and more importantly, KOS-MOS. Speaking of KOS-MOS...

She looked at the sleeping figure on her bed. With some difficulty, she had dragged the unconscious young man into the co-pilot seat of his (at least she hoped it was his) A.M.W.S. and piloted the mobile suit back to her little camp, where she set it beside E.S. Dinah and put the man in her bed. The mobile suit seemed almost... _reluctant_ to let Shion pilot it, but it was impossible for a machine like an A.M.W.S. (from now on, will be called 'Ams") to have feelings like an E.S. which used Vessels of Anima. Right?

So anyways, Shion put the man to bed and then listened to Allen's message, which caused her to have a flashback of the day she left the team. She leaned back in her chair, still wearing her 'sexy' swimsuit, as Miyuki called it. Her large emerald orbs fixed themselves on the man on her bed. He looked about the same age as her. But still... those eyes. Those eyes were so similar to KOS-MOS', and they were staring back at her.

Staring back at her?!

With a squeak, Shion fell backwards out of her chair and landed on her back, banging her head off the floor. "Ouch!" she cried.

"Are you always this clumsy?" the man asked, in his strange, soft voice. It was so gentle, but strong at the same time, if she could even say that. It gave her pleasurable chills for some reason.

She stared at him in a huff as she got back up, puttin her chair to rights at her desk. "You just surprised me, that's all!" she answered haughtily, marching over to the bedside, where he lay. She frowned worriedly at him. "Are you okay?"

She noticed that his eyes were in fact, nothing like KOS-MOS'. While they shared the same glowing crimson color, that is where the similarities ended. Inside those red irises was a black pupil in the dead middle, like all normal eyes, but then, floating inbetween both the pupil and the iris was a black ring! Shion kept staring at his eyes.

"That's unnerving, you know."

She "Eeeep!"ed and leapt back, having discovered that her nose was inches from his as she gawked at his eyes. "I'm so sorry!" she apologized, burying her face in her hands. Why was she acting so wierd around this guy?!

"It's okay, I used to get those same looks all the time," he said, patting her on her bare shoulder. "If you were wondering, the black rings in my eyes are secondary pupils."

Shions hands fell form her face as she cocked her head at the man. "Secondary... pupils?" she repeated in question.

He nodded, sitting up. She hadn't noticed it, but he somehow removed his tight fitting white vest and shirt while she was on the computer, and she tried to fight the growing blush that she just _knew_ was coming onto her cheeks. He was topless... _Bad thoughts!_ she scolded herself. _Remember... remember Kevin!_

"I was part of an experiment," he sighed, running his fingers through his wavy hair. Shion broke out of her thoughts and gaped at him.

"Experiment?" she asked. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Well, to see if non-transgenic Realian organs could be transplanted into humans," he explained. "This... company... engineered these special eyes using the same materials used for 100-series Observational Realian eyes and put them into me."

"And you survived?!" Shion asked in horror. Normal humans who ate the flesh of Realians or recieved transplants from non-transgenic ones went mad because of the narcotic-like feelings they got from it. If what this guy said was true, then he would be the second man in history to have survived this surgery while staying sane.

He nodded. "Absolutely no physical problems," he said. He then frowned. "But I lost all my memory after the operation."

Shion placed her hand on his arm. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she said sympathetically.

He gave her a small smile. "Thanks," he said. "You're pretty nice. "So after I got these special eyes, I lost my memory and had to be retrained. Apparently I was a combat soldier for this... company."

Shion noticed that he visibly winced everytime he mentioned this mysterious company. She wanted to ask him about it, but didn't want to estrange the strange man she had just met. She just nodded along.

"So I retrained and got even better than before, they said," the guy continued. "These eyes have two pupils, one is a normal one, like all humans while the ring has the same sensory technology in Observational Realians."

Shion's eyes widened. "So you can detect Gnosis?" she asked excitedly.

He nodded. "And also any other living organism, as well as see through walls, use telescopic vision, blah blah blah," he said. "It's pretty nifty."

He looked around. "Where are we?" he asked suddenly.

Shion stood up, trying to ignore the man's chiseled stomach as he followed her movement. "We're on Pedea Beach, on a planet near Second Miltia," she explained. "It's sort of my private getaway."

"I wish I had my own beach planet," the man said as he stretched, his arm muscles flexing fluidly as Shion struggled to ignore it. "My name is Cerberos by the way."

"Cerberos?" Shion asked.

"Based off of Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to the Underworld," Cerberos explained. "What's yours?"

"It's Shion Uzuki," she said, shaking his hand. "Is that A.M.W.S. yours?" She pointed to the somewhat arch-angelic mobile suit.

"Yes it is," he responded.

"What happened?" Shion demanded. "You just fell out of the sky like that!"

He rubbed his neck. "I don't remember," he answered quietly, gazing at the still-clear blue sky. "I never remember much."

Shion bit her lip as she looked at Cerberos sadly. He looked so lost at that moment. His crimson eyes showed a lot of suffering and pain, for just a slight moment that she almost imagined it. But no one could imagine that much pain, it wasn't possible. Could it be that this mysterious young man felt a pain similar to hers? Who was he really?

Shion stepped up behind Cerberos and wrapped her arms around his waist to comfort him, but she couldn't deny that she enjoyed pressing up behind him. "It's okay," she whispered, and they both stood there, watching the sky.


	2. To Fifth Jerusalem

_To Fifth Jerusalem_

After their quiet moment, Shion and Cerberos returned to her camp where she quickly changed into her outfit, which consisted of a form-fitting brown leather suit that showed off a lot of skin, and went from her neck to her thighs. On top of that were a pair of brown shorts that looked as if they defied gravity since they weren't buckled up. She wore a grey and blue jacket on top, which had white fur on the collar. She had secretly let out an evil snigger when Cerberos gulped upon looking at her as she came out of the closet. The young man had changed back into his strange, formal outfit. He wore dress pants, a slightly tight-fitting dress shirt with a high collar and a simple vest on top, which had a silver vinal pattern on both sides. Though quite old-fashioned in this day and age, he looked really good in it, especially with his also-old-fashioned hairstyle (AN: Ever seen D.Gray-man? He has the same hairstyle as Allen Walker, but black) that waved even in the slightest breeze.

"I'm heading to Fifth Jerusalem, to visit a friend," she announced, making sure to lock up all her belongings. "I don't know what you're going to do, but if you want you could...?"

She looked at him imploringly. Even though she was meeting up with Allen, her former coworker, she had been quite lonely for the past year. Working with Scientia took up most of her time, but even then she had been alone all those times. Cerberos nodded with a smile.

"Sure," he said. "Are you going to travel through hyperspace?"

Shion nodded. "Yes, my E.S. is capable of doing that without connecting to the U.M.N., so it makes travelling easier," she answered. She glanced up at the A.M.W.S. "You might have to travel with me, your Ams -"

"She can fly through hyperspace," Cerberos interjected. Shion stared at him.

"'She' can?" she asked, two questions in one. He nodded again.

"Her wings have a secondary function as a protective cocoon for hyperspace travel," he said. "They're also the Ams' primary propulsion system, much like the thruster wings on your E.S."

Shion blinked. What kind of Ams was this, a mysterious design that could supposedly travel through hyperspace? "Well, if you say so," she said, unsure of her new friend. "We're gonna leave now, okay?"

"Got it," Cerberos answered, doing some nimble jumps and hops to reach his cockpit. "I'll follow you!"

Shion used some Ether power to jump up to Dinah's cockpit and started the craft up. It was time to go. The E.S. powered up, and its generators created thrust as it touched off the ground, lifting towards the sky. A loud gust of wind rustled the trees beneath her and Shion looked down through the holographic clear cockpit as Cerberos' Ams flapped its majestic angel wings and shot into the sky quickly after her.

"Wow, that's one fast Ams!" she complimented. Cerberos opened up a comm line and smiled at her from the holographic window.

"That she is," he answered. "Her name's -"

"Whoops," Shion interrupted. "Sorry, we gotta cut the chatter for a moment."

Both suits exited the atmosphere and jetted out into space. Shion brought the hyperspace module out with teleportation and it connected to Dinah's back, turning the E.S. into a spaceship-like craft.

"I'm opening up a column, stay close behind me," Shion told Cerberus, who nodded. She watched as the angel wings wrapped around the body of the Ams a few times, creating the familiar cocoon shape. "Here we go!"

A bright blue orb appeared in the space ahead of them, and both craft plunged into it, and the hyperspace within...

-----

_Cerberos' 3rd POV_

"So this is Fifth Jerusalem?" Cerberos asked as Shion led him through the crowds in the First Business District. "Looks... busy."

Shion laughed, and dragged him along by the hand. "You've never been here before?" she asked with a teasing tone, as she led him through the crowds of shoppers. "Wel, neither have I!"

They passed by a few shops, including one that sold weapons of all things, and a Cafe before finally finding the hotel that Allen said he'd meet Shion at. But, blocking there way was a large flatbed that held a lot of crates on it.

"What's up with the roadblock?" Shion shouted over to the maintenance worker behind them.

"Sorry, I'm still trying to clean up this mess!" he shouted back.

"I don't have time for this," Shion muttered. Cerberos watched as she teleported a shield-like device onto her left arm. She took aim with it and the sides slid out, before discharging an explosive burst of energy into the crates, pretty much vaporizing them. She turned back to Cerberos with a silly grin on her face as she patted the weapon.

"It's a Multi-Weapon-System, or M.W.S. for short," she explained. "My friend Miyuki made it for me."

"That's... nice," Cerberos said. "Shall we get a move on?"

Shion frowned cutely. "Oh! That's right!" she exclaimed, pulling him by the hand again. They barely heard the worker's shout of "Thanks!" but Cerberos managed to catch some sort of object he tossed to them before they went inside the huge hotel.

They walked up the moving ramp to the main lobby, where a skinny man with ginger hair and blue eyes was standing in front of a fountain. The man's face lit up as he saw Shion, and he hurried over to her.

"Ch-Chief!" he said excitedly as he stopped in front of the beautiful brunette. "It's good to see... you... again..."

He trailed off as he saw Cerberos, and stared at his and Shion's interlocked hands. Shion let go of Cerberos' hand and smiled at the man.

"Allen!" she said pleasantly. "You're looking well."

'Allen' shook his head with a grin. "Actually, I could use some sleep, but I've got more energy than others," he admitted. "You're looking well too Chief." Cerberos noted that this Allen man spent a somewhat long time looking at Shion's outfit.

Allen looked at Cerberos, who raised an eyebrow back at him. "And who is your friend?" he asked curiously, though Cerberos could see the man measuring him up with his eyes. He would have laughed if Shion hadn't answered.

"This is Cerberos," she explained, patting Cerberos on the arm gently. She smiled at him. "We met not too long ago."

Allen's face fell. "I - I see Chief," he said somewhat dejectedly, but Shion didn't notice.

"Hey could you stop using 'Chief'?" she asked in frustration. "I'm no longer part of Vector. You can call me Shion."

"What?" Allen asked nervously. "Oh, um, Shi-Shi-Shi... Chief... It's kinda hard to change what I call you after all this time."

"Really?" Shion asked. "Seems easy enough to me. Well, whatever."

Allen decided to change the subject. "I've already got you a room on the upper floor, so go ahead and settle in. When you're done, come back down. I'll show you around town."

"Hm," Shion said thoughtfully. "There's a lot I want to talk about, so why don't you come up with me?"

"Wh-what?" Allen asked in surprise. "Go with you? The room's a double!"

"Of course," Shion answered, not getting it since she was lost in thought. "No one's expecting a suite. Ah, there's the elevator. Come on Cerberos!"

"Yes Shion," Cerberos said with a curious look. He followed Shion into the elevator, and both people looked back at Allen, who was giving the other young man a look.

"Hey Cerberos right, why don't you wait down here or something," Allen said, walking up. "Me and the Chief have lots to talk about, and she can get back to you later."

"Allen, don't be rude," Shion chastised as she pressed the button to her room, 701. "Cerberos is with me."

"Wi-_with_ you?" Allen asked in shock. "B-but, well he can probably get his own room, right?"

"Nonsense," Shion waved him off, moving to sit beside Cerberos. The gondola-like elevator they were in had couches. "The room's a double and there's no sense in wasting money when we don't have to."

"Thank you for the suggestion however," Cerberos said. Inwardly he was smirking at the total misconceptions both Shion and Allen were tossing at eachother. It was amusing to watch. He'd encourage it as much as he could.

Allen's face fell. "Oh, of course, no problem," he muttered as the elevator went up to the seventh floor. "No problem at all..."

-----

Cerberos wandered around the nicely furnished room, poking at things while Shion and Allen talked about some job or the other. A sudden beeping alerted everyone to the room's computer terminal.

_"Hi Allen,"_ a girl's voice greeted. _"Is Shion there yet? Oh, there you are!"_

Shion began acting strangely, at least in Cerberos' eyes. "'Oh'?" She repeated. "Is that all you have to say to your former coworker after not seeing her for six months?"

Cerberos started to walk over to the terminal. He saw a cute girl's face frown on the screen.

_"Six months?"_ she asked. _"We just met last -"_

"Six months ago!" Shion said quickly. "Remember?!"

The girl's eyes widened. _"Oh, uh, yeah, right,"_ she said hurriedly. _"Has it really been that long?"_

Cerberos rolled his eyes at her terrible acting. Allen seemed to have fallen for it, which made him out to be an idiot in Cerberos' eyes.

"Huh?" Allen asked stupidly.

Yep. A genuine idiot.

"Ah, um, nothing," Shion reassured him. "I can't believe Miyuki lost track of time!"

'Miyuki' giggled nervously_. "Yeah, I guess time just _flew_ by!" _she said. She turned to Allen. _"Anyway, I bet you're happy Allen, since you're all alone... in a hotel... with Shion. Are you planning to enjoy some 'quality time' with her after this?"_

"Wha-what are you talking about?!" Allen sputtered in terror.

_"Heheheh, I hit the nail on the head, didn't I?"_

"We're not alone," Shion interrupted, not quite understanding the two. "Cerberos, where are you?"

"Yes Shion?" Cerberos asked obediantly, stepping up behind her. He was several inches taller than her, and could see the screen over her hair. He figured that he owed Shion some servitude since she had, after all, rescued him when he crash-landed on Pedea.

The girl, Miyuki's eyes widened. _"Ohoho, who's this?" _she asked, running her eyes up and down Cerberos.

Shion waved her hand casually. "Oh this is Cerberos, he's been with me for a short while," she answered, not realizing that her words were making Miyuki giggle furiously and Allen fume... also furiously.

_"I don't doubt that," _Miyuki said with a wink to Cerberos, who smirked back. _"He's a hottie!"_

"Miyuki," Shion said with an eye-roll (though _totally_ agreeing with her younger former coworker), "did you have some reason from calling Allen?"

A few minutes later, the call with Miyuki ended, and Allen had to get back to work. Before he left however, Shion convinced him to allow her to sit in on the demonstration. He agreed quickly, but then grudgingly agreed to also let Cerberos come as well. He left with a scowl on his face, one that only Cerberos could see, and the dark haired man could only smirk.

Shion sighed and walked over to one of the beds. "This heavy schedule is definitely wearing me out," she announced. "Maybe I'll lie down for a bit."

She did so on the left hand bed and pointed the right hand one out to Cerberos. "You can take that bed, okay?" she asked with a yawn.

Cerberos nodded. "Thanks," he said. "Sleep well, Shion."

"Thanks," she murmured as she drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face. Cerberos had watched over her dutifully until her eyes closed. It was sweet...

-----

"Shion."

"Hmm?" she murmured, waking up. Cerberos was kneeling by her bedside, and his hand was cupping her cheek.

"You've got a call," he said, flicking his head to the computer monitor, which was beeping."

"Oh!" Shion said, sitting up and stretching. It was dark out. "I must have overslept."

"You looked peaceful, so I didn't dare wake you up," Cerberos said, walking off to the other bed. Shion noticed him pick up a jacket that she hadn't seen before. He probably had it sent up or something.

"Thank you," she called as she headed to the comm monitor. She opened the link. A white haired man smiled at her.

"chaos!" she said excitedly. "How've you been?"

"I'm fine," chaos answered in his usual tone. "You're looking well."

"What's with the sudden," Shion began but paused. "Wait, that communication code... Are you on this planet?"

About ten minutes later, Shion shut off the computer. Cerberos walked over to her worriedly. "Are you alright?" he asked in that soft tone she had gotten to like quickly.

"Yeah, but I've got to meet with one of my friends shortly," she said with a frown. She looked up at Cerberos. "Will you come with me?" she asked.

He looked at her. "Of course Shion," he said. The way he looked... and said it... It reminded her heavily of KOS-MOS for some reason. The comm beeped again and brought her out of her musing.

She had a short talk with Doctus, who had called before grabbing her jacket and leading Cerberos to the elevator. They both sat on the couch together quietly as the elevator descended seven floors.

"You look worried over your friend," Cerberos commented. Shion nodded.

"His tone of voice worried me," Shion said. "And the way he acted when I mentioned the Elsa..."

She felt a large, warm hand on top of her tightly clasped ones. "Whatever it is, you'll be fine," Cerberos said supportively, looking out to the evening sky. Shion looked at him warmly for a moment, before joining his gaze outside the window. He never removed his hand and she had no intention of shaking it off either.

-----

"The Elsa's missing?!" Shion gasped as she and Cerberos sat across chaos. When they had first arrived, the young but wise man with white hair had given Cerberos the most intense look in the world before greeting Shion normally.

chaos nodded and looked at Cerberos.

"I am Cerberos," the dark haired man greeted. chaos raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, yes you are," he said cryptically. Both men looked at eachother with raised eyebrows.

"Oooooookay," Shion interrupted, waving her hand between their faces. "What are you going to do about the Elsa?"

She and chaos talked a little more about what they could do, and then moved on to other subjects as Cerberos swirled at his slushie drink Shion had gotten him. It was cherry-flavored. Suddenly, Shion collapsed on the table top.

"Shion!" both men cried, moving to help her. She looked as if she had passed out, but was otherwise fine, physically.

"Will she be okay?" chaos asked worriedly. Any wierd vibes the two men shared with eachother was lost in the moment of peril.

Cerberos blinked his eyes hard for a moment and focused intently on Shion's body. "Physically, she's fine but her mind is incredibly exhausted," he announced. "Mental stress and overload."

chaos looked at him strangely. "How can you tell?" he asked.

Cerberos pointed at his eyes. "Realian type diagnostic eyes," he explained. "They've also got a D.S.S.S. system as well."

Cerberos lifted the unconscious Shion into his arms fireman-style and nodded to chaos. "I'll bring her back to our hotel then," he said.

chaos rubbed his neck. "Okay," he said unsuredly. "Take care of her."

Cerberos heard the unsaid threat. "I wouldn't do anything less," was his answer before sweeping out the door.

_"Things... may get interesting."_

chaos turned around to see a small little girl in a white dress. "Very interesting," he replied.

-----

"Ugh, where am I?" Shion mumbled, sitting up. "The hotel?"

"Are you okay Shion?" Cerberos asked, hurrying over with a tray of food and moist towelettes. He set it by her bed and used a towelette to wipe her face gently, holding her by the chin with his other hand as she flushed under his ministrations. "You had us worried."

She shyly pushed his hands away and smiled at him. "I'm fine now, I think," she said. "Thank you, but you don't have to worry. Oh, I'll have to apologize to chaos later!"

"He understands. You helped me when I crashed onto Pedea Beach," Cerberos said stubbornly, handing her a plate of something that smelled delicious. "I'm in your debt and will help you as long as I can."

Shion took the plate of food and discovered it to be some sort of noodle dish. "You don't have to, and what about your job?" she asked, eyeing the food. It certainly _smelled_ good... "What is this?"

"You've never had spaghetti before?" Cerberos asked. "And don't worry about my job, I guess I don't work anymore."

Shion shook her head. "That's odd. What's spaghetti?" she asked, picking up the silver fork and prodding at the thin yellow noodles covered in a red sauce with many herbs and some sort of cheese. "Is it any good?"

"Take a bite!"

She scooped up a bit of the food and placed it into her mouth nervously. Her eyes lit up at the explosive, spicy taste. "Wow, this is great!" she said, eating some more of it. "Although it's true, I've never had this before! Where did you get it?"

Cerberos sat down next to her. "I made it," he said. "I went to the grocery store down the street and bought the ingredients. Then I used the kitchen to cook it all."

Shion stopped in mid-bite. "You _cook_?" she asked. She was still trying to wrap that around her head. "That's so cool!"

Cerberos just smiled. Just then, the communicator beeped over at the computer terminal.

Shion turned on the line. "Oh, Allen!" she said.

"Chief! What happened?" he asked worriedly (and slightly frantically). "I've been calling you for a while!"

"Calling me?" Shion asked, looking over to Cerberos. The man shrugged.

"You needed rest," he explained. "So I left the comm on silent until morning."

Allen's face grew angry. "So it's all _your_ fault!" he yelled at Cerberos. Shion glared at him, making Allen shrink back.

"He was just worried about me, that's all!" she defended. "He took care of me all night, and even made me food! Don't you dare get angry with him Allen!"

Allen deflated. "Alright, alright, I was just really worried, that's all," he muttered. "But Chief, the demonstration is today! It's going to start soon without you!"

Shion panicked. "I'm so sorry!" she apologized. "We'll be right there! Where are you now?"

"Down in the lobby."

"Okay, we're on our way!" Shion said, getting up from the terminal. She smiled at Cerberos, who had handed her her jacket and wallet, and both of them hurried into the elevator.

Once again, the two sat next to eachother on the couch quietly as they watched the view as they descended. Shion turned to look at Cerberos. The young man (maybe he was a bit younger than her?) was watching the skyline with vivid fascination, as if he had never seen it before. His face was softened and his lips had curled slightly into a small smile.

Shion let a smile blossom onto her lips. This man... this man had gone through so much trouble just to take care of her, and even cook her a homemade meal. He must have also carried her all the way back to the hotel, which was two or three blocks away from the cafe. Was it because he felt some sort of duty to her? He _did_ say that he would help her as long as he could. Did, by chance, helping him when he crashed enact some sort of pseudo-servitude like manner from him? Either way, she was just glad to have him around. She felt much better mentally with Cerberos to help her out. In fact, since waking up from her faint, she felt much better than previous times. Was it because of him?

She placed her small hand on his larger one, which he had on his lap. "I really am thankful that I have you, Cerberos," she said as the elevator doors opened.

A strangled choke caught her attention and she and Cerberos looked out the doors to see Allen look like he was on the verge of exploding. "Allen, are you okay?" Shion asked.

Allen pursed his lips together and shook his head. "It's nothing, we should get a move on!" he said, ushering them out of the elevator, and in the process, breaking them from hand contact. He wedged himself between Shion and Cerberos. Cerberos rolled his eyes at the immature action.

He looked around avidly as they walked out of the hotel, ignoring the two chatterbugs at his side as he drank in the sights. This city was unlike anything he had ever experienced before, and everything was new to him. Earlier this morning, he had had great fun shopping for food and had gotten a bite to eat at a nearby fast food restaraunt before heading back to the hotel. On his way back, he bought a handful of lilies from a little girl, and her smile had warmed his heart. It had been a long time since he had been this carefree.

To be honest with himself, Cerberos had intended to crash his A.M.W.S. into the nearest planet after going rogue from the organization which he refused to even think about. It was all going according to plan when he happened to look upon the beach shore he was crashing nearby and noticed a woman standing there. Cursing himself, for if he crashed the entire area for at least 50 miles would have been vaporized from the bio-nuclear core his mobile suit, Cerberos yanked on the controls as hard as he could, forcing his suit to reverse it's position (it was originally falling head-first) to land on its wing and toe tips, but he had blacked out heavily from the massive G-forces because of it.

When he had woken up for a slight moment, all he could see was fair skin and a very generous cleavage as he struggled to look up at whoever had saved him. It had been the woman from the beach, and she was simply beautiful. He managed a quirky last word before passing out again. He awoke later during the day, and discovered that he had been taken to wherever the woman had lived, and after talking with her, Shion, decided that he would stay with her. Her presence was... it was just wonderful. He couldn't describe it. The way she moved, spoke and talked about things just made life so carefree and worth it, even to someone like him. She was like an epiphany to Cerberos, nudging him to go on, to keep living. It was incredible.

And now, here he was, getting the cold shoulder from some scrawny geek who couldn't realize that Shion was way out of his league and didn't even aknowledge him for all counts. It was hilarious, to say.


	3. The Testing Grounds

_The Testing Grounds_

"That's the exercise area?" Shion wondered as the three stood in the viewing platfrom. "It's larger than I expected. It's almost like an army bombing range."

"Yes." Allen replied. "They're promoting it as an activation test along with a mock battle that's every close to real combat, but… Togashi thinks it's a demonstration by the Salvator faction. If funding gets approved, the military intends to start mass production of the new unit immediately."

"Salvator," Cerberos growled, but fortunately the other two didn't hear him. Shion saw his hands tighten around the railing tightly however. She suppressed a gasp when he removed his hands, to reveal slightly deformed steel, that had the shape of fingers...

The announcer spoke loudly about the tests that were about to begin and a platform rose out of the ground, revealing a feminine figure standing on it with a hand on her hip.

"That's..." Shion frowned. A camera showed the figure's face. "KOS-MOS!?"

"Are you surprised?" Allen asked dryly. "She looks just like KOS-MOS."

"Development code TP-XX, also known as T-elos," Allen recited. "The ultimate, finished unit. A startling advancement in science, as they say."

"T-elos," Shion repeated to herself.

Cerberos ignored the two yet again as this 'T-elos' began to fight large swarms of Gnosis that had been set free in the testing grounds. She obliterated them without a sweat and he watched intently. T-elos continued dominating the many Gnosis that appeared and then the testing finished. As the announcer announced that the second test was going to begin, T-elos suddenly went rigid. The announcer stopped speaking and everyone peered out of their windows.

"What's wrong with her?" Shion asked Allen.

He shook his head. "I dunno, she's never done that before," he answered. "I wonder what's -"

He was cut off as T-elos suddenly turned around and launched herself into the air, streaking towards their viewing window. No one had time to react as she teleported a small beam canon and fired at the glass, shattering a hole into it. She landed inside, right in front of the three and grabbed Cerberos.

"Cerberos!" Shion screamed as T-elos threw him by the collar out into the testing grounds.

-----

_Heh, Salvator's toys must have been programmed to hate my guts as well,_ Cerberos muttered mentally as he sailed through the air, seconds away from turning into a human pancake against a platform. _Well, no time to die now, I've still got to watch over Shion._

He twisted his body in mid-air, so that his feet pointed towards the platform. Hitting it feet-first, he crouched horizontally as his legs absorbed the energy from his flight and casually began to walk down the platform wall, adjusting for gravity (ie, falling down) accordingly. Several seconds later he stepped onto the ground.

Just to corkscrew sideways as a tanned fist smashed into the platform behind him, leaving a large crater. Cerberos landed lightly on the balls of his feet and bounced a little. "Listen, if you want a date you can just ask me," he told T-elos, who removed her fist from the platform's hole.

She sneered at him. "Non-existant!" she said, running towards him.

-----

"Cerberos!" Shion cried, running over to the extended platform area of their viewing window. "Get him out of there! She'll kill him!"

"Chief!" Allen shouted, pulling her back.

-----

Cerberos deftly plucked T-elos' fist out of the air and with a twist of his wrist, locked it to her side, before flicking his leg at her shin, kicking her feet from beneath her. Turning around quickly, he kept his grip on her arm firm as he threw her over his shoulder. She flew several feet before righting herself, and landing on her feet. She held her arm out to her side and teleported a triple gatling gun to her hand.

She pointed it at Cerberos and fired, but he was already moving, moving quickly. He did a flying no-handed cartwheel to his left, then once he landed, spun on the balls of his feet, placing his right leg against a platform, using it to push himself high into the air just as the stream of bullets pulverized the platform wall. He twisted and turned in mid-air to avoid getting hit by the gatling fire and tightened his right fist, preparing to teleport an item. Landing sideways on a platform some 30 feet high, he pushed off it powerfully, rocketing towards the bio-organic android. She tossed her empty gun away and teleported a beam blade this time, preparing to cut Cerberos in half once he reached her.

Cerberos teleported his weapon just before he hit T-elos' blade, and a huge, long broadsword appeared in his right hand. It was 4.5 feet long, and dual-edged. The blade itself made up most of its length, and it tapered outwards to the tip, ending in a diamond shape with a round notch just before it on both sides. Engraved on the blade itself was a thin vinal design, that ran along the center of the blade before expanding into a sort of royal crest-like design with many curves in the diamond tip area. The sword's handguard was made out of several sharp, jagged claw-like pieces, with four on each side. A very short one that ran parallel to the blade, then one twice as long that ran parallel to it stuck out a bit after. Then came another claw that was nearly 90 degrees angled from the blade, but curved because of its clawed shape that made up the familiar shape of a handguard. The last claw acted as a fingerguard as it wrapped around the long black handle. These claws were on each side of the sword.

Sword in hand, Cerberos slashed downwards at T-elos as he reached her, smashing the blade into her beam blade, which caused her to step back from the force of it.

Staring at Cerberos' sword in disbelief (it was solide matter, yet hadn't been sliced in half from her beam blade) T-elos discarded it before teleporting a long, scythe-like sword, which replaced her forearm and hand. She ran full tilt towards Cerberos and slashed at him, but he parried her attack easily with his huge sword. He single-handedly deflected each blow that the android delt him and with a powerful horizontal sweep, knocked T-elos off her feet and she landed on her scantily-clad ass.

She seethed and looked up, only to see the point of Cerberos' sword at her nose. "Why are you here?" she asked harshly.

"If I recall, you threw me," Cerberos answered, his heavy sword never wavering.

"That is not what I meant!"

_"Deploying new model human pilot Anti-Gnosis Weapon."_

Cerberos looked back at the main control window in confusion. Shouldn't they cancel the tests? This android was surely malfunctioning! His head snapped to the side as T-elos suddenly snap-kicked him in the cheek, and he crashed into a platform nearly 20 feet away painfully.

"Ouch, you could have told me you liked it rough," he called over to her, pressing his fingers against the bruised skin. It would most likely swell.

T-elos rolled her ice-blue eyes. "They will find out your true meaning soon enough!" she declared, before leaping into a hole that opened up in the floor, and away from Cerberos. Another hole appeared to his left and Cerberos saw _another_ female android come up, this time with red eyes like his and blue hair.

"Another one?" he muttered, readying his sword. Suddenly, a _massive_ hole opened up and an equally _massive_ machine rose out of it. Cerberos swallowed his spit unconsciously.

"You must evacuate the area," the other android told him in a monotone voice. "It is not safe."

"I knew that," Cerberos said, turning to look the android in the eye. Crimson met crimson and the second female paused for a moment. She then frowned. Do androids frown? They seemed to like sneering and eye-rolling a lot, if the other one was anything to go by.

"You must evacuate immediately," she said again. "I will be combating the weapon system now."

And then she ran off.

About 3 minutes later, Cerberos caught the heavy android (she may have been made out of nano-organic alloys, but she was still damn heavy!) just before she would have travelled through several platforms.

"Thank you," was all she said before running off again.

"She's persistant," Cerberos muttered, teleporting his sword back to dimensional storage. Several loud explosions rocked his ears as the android fought the huge A.G.W.S. and he took two steps to his left. Seconds later, the android crashed through the platform he was leaning against earlier and hit the one behind it, leaving a crater in which she was flattened out into.

"That looked like it hurt," Cerberos called out to her as she slid down the platform, landing on her feet.

"I do not feel pain," she explained, walking back to the Ags. Cerberos rubbed his throbbing cheek.

"Lucky you," he muttered. "What the -?!"

He leapt to the side as a huge arm slammed into the ground where he just was, rolling a few times away. Looking up, he saw the Ags acting strangely. It began to fire red beams out of its face, destroying everything in sight, and was smashing the ground around Cerberos wildly.

"Great, another haywire piece of junk!" Cerberos muttered, teleporting a different weapon into his hands. This time it was a four foot long rail-beam gun. It was pure white in color, and shaped like a long, curving prong. At the very rear, where the handgrip was, ... you know what, just go to my author page, I really don't want to describe yet another weapon.

Anyways,

He hefted the heavy beam weapon in his arms and raised it just in time to see the blue haired android sail past him 100 feet in the air, and land against the viewing window Shion and Allen were behind with a _splat_. Luckily, she didn't look like a pancake. Turning back to the huge monstrosity, Cerberos activated the optical link from its internal camera-aiming-system to his Realian eyes. He 'saw' a small crosshair in his line of vison, along with weapons statistics and calculations. Moving the railgun in his arms until the crosshair landed on its body, Cerberos waited for the gun to charge, as the generator at the rear spun up, creating crackles of energy that ran down the rails.

As it finished and he was about to fire, the large Ags suddenly sagged, losing its life. Waiting for a few moments to make sure it was dead, Cerberos finally sighed and lowered his weapon before teleporting it away. The Ags' arm twitched.

_Oh, damn i-_

That was the last thing Cerberos thought before the darkness claimed him.

-----

Shion sat by the hospital bed side, clutching Cerberos' hand in both of hers. She had been like this for several hours now, hopefully checking to see if he awoke sometimes. But he never did. It had been over 8 hours since Omega had swatted Cerberos into the sky like KOS-MOS... but unlike KOS-MOS, Cerberos was human. He couldn't just get replacement parts or repairs like she did. He had fought amazingly, extraordinairily, but in the end he was still a fragile, weak human compared to machines.

Omega had suddenly shut down (for real this time) and Shion had launched herself into the training area, ignoring Allen's cries of "No!" and the security's shouts of warning. She ran as fast as she could towards Cerberos' crumpled body (he had been smashed into a platform by Omega's arm) and blood had been flowing freely from the crater he resided in. She had then stood there, in shock as medics rushed around her to Cerberos' body, while the security guards tried to drag her away, but she was somehow unmoving.

First, he was attacked by T-elos, who had been incredibly defeated by him in a short amount of time. Then, he _helps_ KOS-MOS when she was fighting Omega, and catches her from the air several times. But then KOS-MOS was beaten by Omega, and he followed shortly.

Shion tightened her grip on Cerberos' hand as tears threatened to fall out of her beautiful green eyes. "Why?" she whispered softly. "Why you? Why did they attack you? You're an amazing fighter, and strong but to me you're still that cute guy who made me spaghetti."

Outside the door, Allen froze before his hand could touch the doorknob. He listened to what Shion had to say from behind the closed door to Cerberos' room

"You always have to help people you know," Shion continued, rubbing his hand gently. The bandaged figure moved slightly, and let out what sounded like a content sigh. She smiled. "You helped me when I fainted, and you helped KOS-MOS, even though you didn't know her at all, and even if someone who looked like her had just attacked you. You're too nice for your own good you know!"

Her smile fell and the tears that threatened to fall finally did. "Please wake up," she begged in a whisper, pressing her cheek against his warm skin. "These past few days... I wouldn't have been able to get through them without you. Wake up, please!"

She raised her head and sniffed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand as she held onto Cerberos' with her other. "You know, you're the first guy that's managed to get to me since... since... Kev -"

"Shion!"

She jerked around to see Allen in the doorway, smiling at her. She narrowed her eyes. His entrance had been too sudden, too well-timed.

"Yes Allen?" she asked in exasperation, turning back to Cerberos and stroking his hand.

"Well, I, er," he stammered. "Are you okay?"

He couldn't see it, but Shion rolled her eyes. "Someone I care about was slapped around by not one, but _two_ Anti-Gnosis weapons," she said hotly. "How do you think I feel?"

Allen winced. "I - I'm sorry," he apologized lamely. "If it makes you feel any better, Juli Mizrahi was furious over what happened. She practically exploded on Special Advisor Roth Mantel afterwards. The entire Anti-Gnosis department was severely disciplined for allowing the tests to continue with a civilian trapped inside."

"They didn't even stop the tests, or call them back," Shion muttered bitterly. "They just went on as if Cerberos was part of it! How sick are they?!"

Allen shook his head sadly. He took a seat next to Shion. "It's all politics," he said. "I don't know how killing an innocent man will make them look better, but that's probably what the higher-ups were thinking. I still can't believe that Cerberos beat T-elos however."

He shook his head again, this time in awe. "The speed of which he moved, it matched hers perfectly, did you know that?" he asked.

Shion raised an eyebrow. "Really?" she asked back. "How do you know that?"

Allen grinned. "I've got connections!" he said brightly. Shion smacked his arm. "Ow, ow, okay! I asked Supevisor Mizrahi for the battle data on T-elos. She was able to get a copy before they were made classified."

"That was clever of her," Shion said. "And it said that Cerberos moved just as quickly as T-elos?"

"Not just as," Allen corrected. "Exactly. To the muscle movement. Since our eyes couldn't pick up their movements, we had the data cameras slow it down so we could watch. Here, take a look."

He passed her his PDA-communicator and she opened the holographic screen. It showed Cerberos fighting, moving like nothing she had ever seen before. His movements were fluid, graceful and so unbelievable that she almost didn't believe it if she hadn't seen it for herself earlier. She noticed that his peculiar red eyes were slightly glowing, and she frowned. Programming the PDA to zoom in only on his eyes, she played it back again.

"Look at his eyes," she said, showing the screen to Allen. "You can't see it now, but they move so quickly, and each time they stop on something, I bet it's T-elos' next move or something."

"They're also glowing," Allen commented. "What's up with that?"

Shion shut the device off and gave it back to her former coworker. "He has combat-observational Realian eyes," she said, returning her attention to the figure in the bed.

"R-Realian eyes?!" Allen yelped. "He's a Realian?"

"No, he's human," she answered. "He said he was experimented on."

Allen leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath. "That explains much," he said. At Shion's questioning look, he added, "Well, the strength and speed he has of course. Plus, those eyes must have been recording T-elos' every movement and he probably used that to his advantage. KOS-MOS and T-elos have the same sensory optics too so I figured that was it."

"Quite insightful Chief Ridgeley," Shion praised. "But why didn't T-elos track his movements?"

Allen waved his hand. "That's easy," he answered. "It's because she has so far been programmed to predict the attacks of Gnosis, many weapons systems and even KOS-MOS. Cerberos was an uknown element to her. Well, not anymore, she'll have recorded whatever she could from their fight however."

Shion rubbed Cerberos' hand. "It's not T-elos I'm worried about," she sighed. "It was Omega. The way it lost control back there... and Cerberos..."

The tears threatened to spill again. "Everything's been so crappy lately!" she cried in frustration, startling Allen. "The Gnosis Terrorism, the dissapearance of the Elsa -"

"Whoa, wait, the Elsa's missing?" Allen asked.

"- and now Cerberos getting badly injured!" Shion went on. "And chaos told me last night that the Elsa and its crew went missing on some mission. I'm supposed to see them later today but..." She looked back at Cerberos. "I'm not sure if I can."

Cerberos then groaned. Shion shot out of her chair, her elbow smacking Allen on the nose as he yelped and fell backwards, clutching his face. She was at Cerberos' head quickly, patting him on his hair.

"Cerberos, are you awake? Can you hear me?" she asked desperately.

"Did anyone get the ID of that Ags pilot?" he moaned, sitting up.

Shion let out a relieved laugh. "You're silly," she said, feeling giddy. "Don't sit up! You're hurt!"

"I'm fine," Cerberos muttered through his bandages. He began to tear them off with his unbandaged hand. Nurses and doctors poured into the room once the vital lifesigns connections had been severed, and their protests to Cerberos to stop were ignored as the man unwrapped himself.

Shion gasped as the last bandage fell from his waist. _His... his wounds!_ she thought, _what happened to his wounds?!_

He was perfectly healthy. There were no gashes, bruises or jutted out ribs on his body. His face was back to its normal handsomeness, and his arm wasn't in four pieces. He looked like the epitome of perfect health.

"Wha?" Allen sputtered. "How?'

Cerberos grinned and raised his wrist. It showed a thin silver bangle that the doctors hadn't managed to remove when they began operating on him.

"This bangle has an automated system that activates when the sensors that monitor my vital signs drop drastically," he explained, sitting up more. "Using the presumption that I've been taken to a hospital immediately, it's programmed to wait until my vitals have stabilized before teleporting a DX-series medical kit that is automatically injected into my bloodstream through the veins in my wrist. After that, it's just a matter of hours before I'm healed."

He suddenly grunted as Shion slammed into his midsection, clutching onto him tightly. "DX or not, don't you _ever_ worry me like that again!" she shrieked, punching him in the gut. "I've spent the past eight hours sitting here, terrified for you!"

"Thanks?" Cerberos answered akwardly, patting her on the head. "Um, you can let go now?"

Shion "eep"ed and slid away from him, looking anywhere but his face as her own was fairly hot. "I'm glad you're okay," she said, patting his arm.

"I know you are," he said, enjoying the warmth her hand radiated as it lay on top of his. "But I was serious, what's the ID of that Ags pilot?"


	4. Rescuing KOSMOS

_Rescuing KOS-MOS_

Later that night, Cerberos was released from the hospital. Shion quickly said goodbye to Allen, who left with a disgruntled look on his face. She had quickly put Cerberos to bed, ignoring his whines and situated herself at her computer, where she talked to Doctus and Miyuki about their mission.

Just as Allen called her, she suddenly passed out at her computer.

_"Shion!" _

_"Sh-Shion!"_

_"Ch - Ch - Ch - Chief! What's wrong!"_

Cerberos awoke with a jerk, and rocketed out of his bed. He saw Shion's crumpled body on top of her computer terminal and ran over, gingerly picking her up.

_"Chief! Cerberos, what happened?"_ Allen demanded hysterically. _"What did you do to her?!"_

Cerberos held Shion tenderly in his arms. He rolled his eyes at the idiot. "If you're implying that I can somehow kill people in my sleep, then I honestly have no clue as to how you got a job at Vector," he replied snarkily. He looked over to the Miyuki girl and some white haired woman, both who were snorting with laughter at Allen despite the circumstances. "Shion has passed out from exhaustion," he explained. "Most likely from not getting rest while looking after me. I'm going to put her to bed, she really needs her rest."

_"I'm coming up!"_ Allen declared. Cerberos waved him off.

"Don't bother, I can take care of her as well as an MC doctor with my optic sensors scanning her," he called over his shoulder. "The last thing Shion needs is people crowding her when she's exhausted. I will contact you in the morning."

He placed Shion in her bed gently and held her in a sitting position as he removed her jacket, revealing the criss-cross suit she wore underneath. Placing the jacket on the table at the bedside, he lay her down again and pulled the covers over to her shoulders. He brushed some hair out of her eyes and sighed. This was the second time she had fainted in two days. It was something other than chronic exhaustion, but he couldn't prove it. He headed back to the comm.

"She'll be fine in the morning, but I'll try to make her get some rest tomorrow night," he told the three people on the screen.

_"Oho, I'd like to see that!" _Miyuki announced. _"I've never seen anyone but KOS-MOS make Shion do anything!"_

_"Just take care of her then,"_ the white haired woman said, her strange glasses covering her eyes. _"I'll give her a call later tomorrow."_

She and Miyuki disconnected, leaving Cerberos and Allen. Allen looked agitated.

_"If she falls ill under your care..."_ he threatened.

"Save it loverboy," Cerberos finally snapped, annoyed at the man. "If you think I'd let anything happen to her, then I'll kill you right where you stand. Am I understood Ridgeley?"

Allen gulped, seeing the same glow in Cerberos' eyes like when he fought T-elos. "I - I - yeah," he said before hurriedly disconnecting.

Cerberos sighed and leaned back in the chair.

"You didn't need to threaten him," a tired voice called. He turned around to see Shion yawning from her bed. He headed over and pushed her back down, ignoring her protests.

"You need rest!" he said firmly, tucking her back under her blankets. "And he threatened me first. He must be a fool if he thinks that I'd ever let you get hurt."

Shion leaned up, and after some hesitation, pecked him on the lips. "You're so sweet," she breathed, before fallling back asleep.

Cerberos stood over her for a while, before blinking and moving over to his own bed.

-----

The next morning, Shion awoke to the sun's rays warming her face. She looked over to Cerberos' bed and discovered that she had woken up earlier than him for once. She smiled fondly at him. He slept on his side, curled up like a child. It was cute.

Her thoughts flashed back to the previous night. _Did I really kiss him?_ she wondered, touching her lips. Even hours later, she could still taste him on her lips after running her tongue across them. He tasted strangely of peppermint, but it was pleasant.

She got up and headed to the shower unit in the bathroom. As she began to wash herself, she began thinking about Cerberos, and eventually about Kevin.

_I'm sorry Kevin,_ she thought sadly. _I really love you but... maybe Miyuki's right, maybe I do need to move on_. (Even though Shion was unaware that by 'moving on' Miyuki meant 'Allen Ridgeley')

When she got out of the shower (dressed only in a towel, she was feeling naughty for some reason) she saw Cerberos sitting up in bed, rubbing the sand out of his eyes as he yawned. "Shower's free," she announced, flouncing by him in an attempt to get a rise out of him. She was just feeling mischievious all of a sudden!

"Thanks."

She nearly fell face-first into her dresser as Cerberos got up and grabbed a towel before walking to the bathroom. _The one rare time I decide to have fun and he ruins it_, she pouted.

She sulked on her bed as she found a fresh set of the same outfit and laid them on her bed. She heard Cerberos pause at the bathroom door.

"And yes, you look sexy," he said before heading in and closing the door.

Shion grinned and removed her towel to change.

-----

"Today we're going to meet our friends on the Durandal, a battleship," Shion explained as Cerberos toweled his hair dry. She watched as he used his fingers to return his hair to its naturally sleeked-back style, without any hair products at all. She herself had replaced all the hairclips ties in her hair to put it back to its usual fashion while Cerberos had showered.

"Durandal?" Cerberos asked. "Sounds fancy."

"It's _very_ impressive," Shion said, getting up. She grabbed his hand. "Come on!"

She dragged him somewhere once again as they hurried down to the hotel lobby and exited outside. Shion kept holding his hand as they walked through the crowds, away from the First Business District and back to the spaceport elevator, where the Durandal and their mobile suits were stationed several miles up.

"You sure are excited," Cerberos commented as she weaved them through the crowd.

"It's just that I haven't seen my friends in months!" Shion said. "I'm so eager to see them again!"

"I hope they have food," Cerberos said as she yanked him along. "We haven't eaten yet and you need to keep up your strength."

"I know, I know," Shion said flippantly. She tugged on his arm again, giving him a pathetically adorable look. He sighed and quickened his pace.

"That face should be illegal," he grumbled. She laughed, happy that her plan worked and they finally arrived at the spaceport. Entering inside, Shion found the platform elevator that led to the Durandal and they both got inside and sat down on a couch.

"Oh joy, another 3 hour elevator trip," Cerberos said dryly, picking up a magazine. Seeing that it was a woman's magazine, he tossed it back with a grunt. "So, this visit is about your other friends right? The ones on the Elsa?"

Shion nodded and went to grab his hand again. She hoped that he would get a clue about her actions. He responded to her action by spreading his fingers open, which caused her fingers to drop down the cracks as they interlaced. She smiled at him.

"Yeah, I want to know what's going on," she declared, giving his hand a squeeze. She would try to move away from her past, for her future's sake.

Some hours later, they finally arrived at the spaceport, and Shion dragged Cerberos all over the place before seeing the familiar red spike that was the Durandal. Running towards the dock, she saw Jr., MOMO and Ziggy waiting for her.

"Hey Shion!" Jr. shouted excitedly, "You're looking well!"

He caught sight of Cerberos, who prowled up beside Shion. "Who's your friend?" he asked curiously.

Shion beamed and grabbed Cerberos' hand. "This is Cerberos," she introduced. "Cerberos, these are my best friends, Jr., MOMO and Ziggy."

"Pleasure ta meet ya!" Jr. said enthusiastically. Whispering behind his hand, he said to MOMO, _"It's about **time**__"_

MOMO giggled, and then curtsied to Cerberos, who had heard everything Jr. said with a grin. "Hi, it's nice to meet you!" she said sweetly.

"A pleasure," Ziggy said.

"And you all as well," Cerberos said with an inclination of his head. "Shion hasn't told me much about you, so don't be surprised and/or terrified when I appear out of nowhere and maul you for information about yourselves."

"HAH!" Jr. laughed, slapping Cerberos on the side (since he was an un-aged U.R.T.V. after all, he had a 13 year old's body). "I like him already! Come on, the others are waiting inside!"

-----

"Oh? Who's this you've got here Shion?"

Everyone turned around to see a tall dark haired man wearing a kimono. He had a happy but weathered face and Shion looked confused.

"Jin?!" she exclaimed. "Oh that's right, I completely forgot you were with them."

Jin looked puzzled. "Is that any way to greet the brother you haven't seen in a while? Everyone else is here. You know, you really should be a little more punctual -"

Shion had a cheeky look on her face. "Yes, yes everyone's here now, right?" she interrupted in a business-like tone. "Let's get started."

Jr. laughed. "You haven't changed a bit Shion! Juli and the others are waiting at the bridge. This way!"

They all headed for the tube train that would take them to the bridge. Jin sat next to Cerberos and Shion, who was playing with his fingers.

"So you haven't introduced us yet," Jin said, nodding towards Cerberos. The train stopped (_Damn, that's fast! _Cerberos thought) and they all exited.

"Oh, that's right, I'm sorry," Shion said. "Cerberos, this is my... katana-wielding older brother Jin. Jin this is Cerberos, my... um..."

"Is that so?" Jin said with a raised eyebrow and slightly evil smirk on his face. Jr. and the others began to back away. A black-sheathed katana teleported into his left hand.

"Oh Jin, stop trying to scare him," Shion scolding, smacking her brother on the arm (totally ignoring the fact that he was armed and dangerous). "He did it to Kevin too."

"Kevin?" Cerberos asked. Shion looked sombre.

"My old... nevermind," she said hurriedly. "Listen Jin, Cerberos here fought _both_ those new Anti-Gnosis weapons and defeated one of them, do you really want to fight him?"

"Anti-Gnosis huh?" Jin said, eyeing Cerberos critically. Cerberos teleported his broadsword into his hand.

"I'm up for it if he is," he responded, tapping the tip of his 4.5 foot sword on the floor.

Shion pushed him back. "Stop it you two," she ordered. "Cerberos, stop encouraging him and Jin, stop trying to terrify my... uh..."

"Boyfriend?" MOMO suggested helpfully.

"Lover?" Jr. tried. Ziggy swatted his head slightly.

"Well, figure it out later then!" Jr. said, annoyed as he rubbed his head. "And no fighting on my ship, got it?"

Cerberos' sword vanished, and Jin's followed shortly. "Got it," Cerberos said. They made their way to the bridge.

-----

"That's the third time now," Cerberos said as he sat on the bed opposite to Shion's. She was sleeping quietly, having fainted earlier after meeting Juli and talking about rescuing the Elsa and KOS-MOS, who was slated for disposal.

Allen had barged onto the Durandal, and had to be forcibly restrained from knocking down the door to Shion's room. Presently, only Jin, Cerberos, Jr. and the ship's crew could see or watch over her.

"I see," Jin said quietly, watching the younger man. The last few hours had seen Cerberos constantly by Shion's side, tending to her. Jin had watched earlier as the man had somehow known that Shion would break out into a sweat, and had appeared by her bedside with a moist towelette in hand, wiping away the beads of sweat as soon as the appeared. Then, he had covered Jin's younger sister with a blanket just as she shivered from being cold, almost instantly.

"How do you...?" Jin tried to ask, but didn't want to sound rude.

"How do I know what to do, and when?" Cerberos asked. "Look into my eyes."

Jin did so, and noticed for the first time, a black ring in those red orbs. "What is that?" he asked.

"It's a second pupil," Cerberos explained. "I was an experiment to see if non-transgenic Realian organs could be transplanted into normal human bodies. These eyes are prototypes, they have the same functions as Series-100 Observational Realians and Combat Realians, plus they also have Gnosis sensors built in as well."

"I understand," Jin said, leaning back and sitting at the foot of Shion's bed. "So you can read her vital signs then."

"I can."

"Allen told me that you've cared over her twice before this," Jin said. "I can't thank you enough."

"She -"

Cerberos went quiet. Jin nodded in understanding.

"Yes, I see that now," he said. "You probably don't need it now, and I doubt Shion would care either way but you have my blessing."

Silence.

"Thank you."

"Mmm," Shion murmured, waking up.

"How are you feeling?" Jin asked quickly. She sat up in the bed.

"I'm sorry for worrying you," Shion said quietly.

"Are you still working with Scientia?" Jin asked shortly.

"Oh," Shion said. "You knew."

"Allen said you've been busy," Jin explained. "I figured that might be it. Ever since you were little, you'd rush forward without stopping once you've set your mind on it. And never heeded my advice."

Shion giggled. "You're _quite_ correct."

Jin got up and gave a nod to Cerberos. "Well, it's alright as long as you're okay," he announced. "Cerberos, keep it up."

"I will."

He left the room and Shion looked at the spot on the bed he was at. There were a few small packages of tea lying there.

"Mm. Herbal remedy?" she said curiously, picking them up. "You could have just handed it to me you know!"

"Shion, are you really okay?" Cerberos asked worriedly, reaching out and taking the packages away before wrapping her tiny hands in his own. "I'm very worried about you. My scans show heavy mental exhaustion, and I'm not talking about stress."

"I forgot you had that ability," Shion sighed. "I wish I knew what's making me so tired. Did the ship's MCs find out anything?"

"Nothing."

"I'll try to get more rest then," Shion said. "I guess that's all I can do."

"I'll be right here if you need me," Cerberos said quietly. She smiled up at him and pulled him onto her bed. "Shion..."

"What?" she asked, daring him to say anything. "Nothing's going to happen, _right_?"

"Of course not."

"Then you have nothing to worry about!" she exclaimed. "I'm a big girl, I can handle myself! Besides, this way you really _are_ right next to me."

Cerberos laid her down on her side and draped the blanket over them. "Sleep well Shion," he said. She cooed some unintelligible response and snuggled up to his side as he lay on his back. Soon, her breathing became long and slow, and he knew she was asleep without needing his eyes. Unconsciously, Shion draped her leg over him and wedged it between his legs before snaking her arm over his chest and using his shoulder as a pillow. She was incredibly warm and soft, and he drifted off almost instantly.

-----

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"

Cerberos awoke with a start, and teleported his double barreled .500 revolver (over-under barrel design, twin cylinders each holding five rounds, 8.75 inches long) into his hand, sitting up and pointing it in the direction of the furious scream and fired instinctively.

"AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!" Allen (the screamer) screamed again, as the twin bullets tore a nice dinner plate-sized hole in the wall beside his head.

Behind him on the other side stood Jr., MOMO, Ziggy, Jin and Juli while they laughed. Well, Jr. laughed.

"Ugh, Allen!" Shion yelled, sitting up as Cerberos lowered his revolver. "What the hell?!"

"Wh - Wha - What are you doing?" he managed to sputter.

"_Trying _to sleep!" she said irritably, glaring at him. "What is the matter with you?"

"I - uh - nothing, nevermind," he muttered.

"Then what did you scream for?!" Shion shouted, actually scaring everyone. "I haven't had a good night's rest like this forever!"

"Shion..." Allen said sadly. "I - I'm sorry."

He quickly pushed past the others and left the room, and Jin stepped in.

"Shion, he was just -"

"Being an idiot, that's what," Shion muttered, getting out of the bed. After a moment's thought, Cerberos thought it was safe to follow her now. "He tells me to get rest and then prevents me from getting it! Honestly, what's up with that man lately?"

"If you don't know, we're not telling!" MOMO giggled. She and Jr. shared a secretive look.

"Whatever," Shion grumbled, heading for the shower. "I've got shower first!"

"Uh. Okay," Cerberos said to the closing door. He turned to the others. "Is she normally that scary?"

"Occasionally," Jin said with a wistful smile. "Just remember to stay on her good side, unlike Allen just now. Poor guy."

"Can I see your gun?!" Jr. asked excitedly. Cerberos handed it to him. "Wow, this is so sweet! I've never seen a classic like this before!"

"I custom-made it," Cerberos said. "You can have it if you'd like."

Jr.'s blue eyes widened fantastically. "Really?!" he gasped. "Ya mean it?"

Cerberos nodded. "I can always make another one. Be careful though, it's a .500 caliber long magnum, plus double shot. You could shatter your elbow if you don't fire it properly."

"You shot it with one hand," Ziggy pointed out in his deep voice.

"I'm special," Cerberos answered.

-----

"So, we're infiltrating that CAT testing site?" Cerberos asked as he and Shion sat in the couch in their hotel room, watching TV. It was later on in the day, after they had done some planning. Shion looked much healthier now.

"That's right," Shion said. "I can't let KOS-MOS be thrown out like common garbage!"

"KOS-MOS?" Cerberos asked. "You've said that name many times now. Who is KOS-MOS?"

Shion slapped her forehead. "Of course, no one's told you!" she said in exasperation. "KOS-MOS was the blue-haired android that you helped the day of the tests, remember?"

"Yes."

"Well, me and the others from Vector actually had a hand in designing and creating her," Shion explained. "So, you can understand why..."

"Of course, you care about her," Cerberos said. Shion nodded.

"Yes, I suppose I do," she said thoughtfully. She glanced at the clock. "We don't have to leave for a few hours, what do you want to do?"

"Hmm," Cerberos hummed. "I saw a nice park nearby?"

Shion's face lit up. "Oooh, let's go!" she said excitedly. This time, Cerberos preempted her action and got up quickly to prevent being dragged by her. They took the elevator down and went out to the park, where they had a pleasant evening just sitting next to eachother as they watched the night sky and breathed in the flowery perfumes of the garden.

-----

After discovering that the elevator didn't work (and Shion grumbling about Miyuki messing up again) the group had to take an elaborate journey throughout the entire facility. The encountered many automated security defenses and guards, but the large team quickly disposed of them easily. It wasn't until Shion had to purge the restraint power unit (and unwittingly unleashing a huge Gnosis monster) that they realized that they had just cut the power to the Gnosis breeding area.

"I think we just made a mistake," Shion groaned. They began to head out of the area to the next one.

Miyuki suddenly appeared beside Cerberos. "So, you're Shion's new boy-toy huh?" she asked with a grin.

"Miyuki!" Shion scolded. "Stop acting like a dirty old man, maybe you won't mess up so much!"

"Oh come on Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiion!" Miyuki whined. "How did you guys meet up?"

In the background, Allen gnashed his teeth together hard, making chaos and Ziggy back away from him.

"Fell out of the sky." was Cerberos' response. Miyuki laughed.

"No really, he did," Shion said. "He crash-landed his Ams on the beach I was staying at. I nursed him back to health and, well, here we are!"

"That sounds soooo _romantic_!" Miyuki gushed, twirling around with her hands clasped together. "To be honest, I expected you'd end up with -"

A loud rumbling footstep interrupted what she was going to say next, and they realized that they had entered the area with the Ags units.

"It's an AG-01," Shion said softly, teleporting her M.W.S. onto her left arm.

The Ags attacked, firing a burst of automatic fire from its rifle and everyone scattered to avoid being hit. Shion gripped her M.W.S. with her right hand and steadied her aim, before firing a medium output blast from it, damaging the AG-01 slightly. Jr. fired a dual-shot from his new revolver, and consequently flew back 20 feet from the recoil.

"This gun RULES!" he shouted, scrambling back up with MOMO's help.

Cerberos shook his head in amusement and teleported his railgun, and he fired a highly concentrated beam of energy at the chest of the Ags, sending pieces in every direction.

Jr. whistled. "Now that is one powerful gun!" he said as Cerberos vanished it.

"Sorry, you can't have this one," Cerberos smirked.

"You know," MOMO said sadly, looking at the smoldering wreckage, "I never thought we'd end up fighting them. It feels rather strange."

Jr. slung his arm around her shoulders. "It's only an A.G.W.S.," he said. "The pilots pick which side they're on. Don't get emotional about it."

A loud screech of metal on metal caught their attention. They all turned around to see Cerberos and a VX-7000 Ags. Cerberos had sliced downwards on the Ags, and his sword had cut all the way to the torso before stopping. The man was currently standing on the handle of his broadsword and giving the group a raised eyebrow as the Ags began to teeter over. He hopped off his sword, grabbing it with his hand and pushing off the Ags' body, dislodging his sword and landing a few feet away as the small mobile suit toppled over and burst into flames.

"How could you not notice something like that?!" he asked them incredulously.

-----

They finally got onto the elevator, which brought them lower than they had expected. Although everyone expected the chastising Shion gave Miyuki for supposedly messing up again, but the girl really hadn't this time. They then ran into the Omega pilot, the little boy named Abel, who led them into a scrap room. Allen tripped over a jutting piece of metal and found KOS-MOS.

"KOS-MOS!" Shion cried, desperately running towards the unmoving android.

She knelt down to the beautiful woman. "KOS-MOS! How could they do this to you?!"

"Man, I can't believe they'd trash a top-security unit in a place like this," Jr. commented.

Shion sighed irritably.

"Ah, eh, uh, sorry," Jr. apologized quickly, remembering her outburst at Allen.

"Chief, it's okay!" Allen said to Shion. "It seems like there aren't any damages. We can reboot her right away!"

They pulled out their PDAs and pulled up the rebooting program. Shion frowned.

"I don't understand," she said in puzzlement. "What's this task? Miyuki, can you tell us what this is?"

"Ummm, beats me," Miyuki answered. "But I think it looks like some kind of feeback from something. I won't be able to tell without an analysis... and we don't have that kind of equipment here for that."

Shion let it slide and they went to reboot KOS-MOS, who miraculously woke up, despite having been tossed down a garbage chute several hundred feet.

"Good morning KOS-MOS," Shion said happily, with tears in her eyes. "How are you?"

KOS-MOS looked back to her designer. "And good morning to you Shion," she answered. Her tone was slightly less monotone when addressing the brunette beauty. "My drive coefficient is down by .3, but everything else is running normal. There are no problems."

Shion approached KOS-MOS and hugged her.

"Good," she said simply. "I'm sorry KOS-MOS."

"Is there something wrong Shion?"

"No, it's nothing," Shion sniffed, still hugging the buxom android. "I'm just happy. That's all."

She released KOS-MOS with a smile. The android had a content look on her face. Cerberos stepped up, holding his hand out.

"We meet again, KOS-MOS," he said. "My name is Cerberos."

KOS-MOS stared at him. Her eyes lowered to his outstretched hand. She reached out slowly and grasped it in a handshake, and then jerked back as a jolt of feeling ran through her body. Shion looked worried.

"KOS-MOS, what's wrong?" she asked. "Cerberos, what happened?"

"I don't know," Cerberos said. "She just touched me."

"I felt," KOS-MOS said. Everyone was silent.

"You... felt?" Shion asked, her eyes wide. She stared at KOS-MOS' ungloved hand. What she had just said was... impossible!


	5. Cerberos' Past

_Cerberos' past_

"Wait, wait, wait," Jr. said, waving his hands and shaking his head. "I thought that androids couldn't, you know..."

"They can't," Shion said dubiously. "KOS-MOS has no nerves. KOS-MOS, are you sure that you 'felt'?"

"Yes Shion," the beautiful machine answered. "It defies my logic system but when I touched Cerberos' hand, I felt warmth, and also the rough callousness of his skin. When I jerked back, I felt his index fingernail scratch my palm. It was irritable."

"This is incredible!" Allen said excitedly, typing furiously on his PDA. "So there must be some sort of phenomenon that allows KOS-MOS to have the sense of feeling whenever she touches Cerberos?"

Everyone turned to Cerberos. He shrugged.

"My guess is as good as yours," he said.

"Well it can't hurt to try again," Miyuki said, grabbing Cerberus' arm. "Here, touch her again!"

"Hey!" Cerberos protested, but he and KOS-MOS were forced to hold hands.

"Well?" Miyuki asked.

"Yes Miss Itsumi, I am experiencing the sensation again," KOS-MOS replied. "By holding Cerberos' hand, I am somehow subject to the sense of touch. I have decided that it is also pleasant."

"'Pleasant'?" Allen echoed. "So you like it?"

"Yes."

Shion was baffled. Not only was KOS-MOS able to feel, but now she had _decided_ that she liked it! What was going on?!

"Cerberos, I think it's time you told us about your past," she said tersely. She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. She would be crushed if the first guy she had come to care about in a long time turned out to be someone sinister.

Suddenly, everyone surrounding him started to look hostile. Cerberos' eyes flickered, so quickly that only KOS-MOS noticed the rapid glow and fade in his crimsom rings.

"Very well," he said, dropping his hand to his side. Almost unconsciously, KOS-MOS reached out and grabbed it in her hand, wanting to relish in this new sensation. He only raised an eyebrow at her for a moment. "The day that I 'crash landed' on the beach, I wasn't aiming to land at all. I had planned on crashing at full speed and detonating the self-destruct system on my Ams."

"What?" Shion gasped. "Why?"

"To escape," Cerberos growled, his eyes starting to glow. Those that hadn't seen it before cringed at the slightly demonic look he wore now. "From the Salvator Faction."

"Salvator?!" Allen asked in panic. "What?"

"You all know I'm an experiment, right?" Cerberos asked. "My eyes, like everyone said? Heh. It was more than just my eyes. Much more. Bones. Cartilidge. _Blood_. They were all removed, sucked dry out of my body and replaced with synthetic replacements! All while I was wide awake and under no anesthetic."

"Oh my," MOMO said, looking sick. "You... felt everything?"

"Every had the skin on your back peeled open, and you spine torn out of place?" Cerberos asked harshly, removing his hand from KOS-MOS'. He stormed over to a large piece of scrap metal and leaned against it, his forehead against the cool metal. "I have. Every single bone in my body was ripped out, synthetically reproduced with bio-alloy and re-inserted. I thought I would die everytime a bone was taken out, but I didn't, they wouldn't let me. And then, they injected some special cartilidge into my bones and skull, which felt like liquid iron being poured into my body. It lasted for days. It _took_ days for the cartilidge to assimilate itself to my body. The worst was the skinning however. Every God forsaken inch of flesh was carved off my body and replaced with a breed of nanomachine-bio-skin far superior to KOS-MOS'. That also took days."

He turned back to the horrified group behind him. Angrily, he slammed his fist into the piece of scrap, leaving a fist-sized dent in it. "It took two years to regrow my nerves," he said softly, examining his bruised knuckles. They began to fade back into flesh tones, signifying rapid healing. "After that, I lost my memory due to trauma, or so I'm told and the army hammered me with training. Military training, weapons training, close-range combat, assassination, infiltration, the works. I even got a specially designed Ams, which used an intelligent AI system that recognizes me as its pilot."

"So that's why it didn't want me to pilot it," Shion murmured. "But it knew that you were hurt, so it let me."

"Yes," Cerberos said. "After the large Gnosis attack two years ago, the Salvator Faction wanted to re-enter me back into experimentation, to see if they could make me an even bigger monster than I am now."

"You're not -!" Shion protested, but he waved her off.

"I've killed," he stated blunted. "So much. Too much. I had no memory of myself other than being a killing machine. I killed, and killed, and killed. So many, many, many..."

He went silent.

"I finally became aware of myself, but still didn't remember a thing about my true past," he muttered. "It didn't matter anymore. I'll never remember who I really was."

He looked at the crater in the piece of scrap and continued.

"I took my Ams and escaped, which was easy since it's untrackable through the U.M.N.," he continued. "I intended to find the nearest planet and self-destruct there but..."

"But what?" MOMO prodded.

"My screen showed an image of Shion," Cerberos said softly, surprising everyone and causing Shion to tear up. "And I didn't."

It was all silent for a moment, and then Cerberos sighed. Everyone looked at him. He could see it in their eyes. That same look, that same look that everyone at the hidden base gave him.

Fear and disgust.

It hurt.

"I don't know why KOS-MOS can feel when she touches me," he said shortly. "And I don't want to know. You're acting like they did, you know. The soldiers at the base. You have the same looks on your faces like they did whenever I walked by."

Everyone looked away in shame as Cerberos pointed it out, even Shion. A pity. He thought she would understand. _These people... I can't be around these people,_ Cerberos thought sadly. _I can't be around anyone!_ he finished angrily.

"I think it's best if I leave," he said softly. He turned and headed to the doorway the entered. "It... It was really nice knowing you all."

"Cerberos, wait!" Shion cried, running after him, but it was too late.

He was gone.

-----

Cerberos quickly escaped from the facility undetected by everything. He made it outside and ran full tilt to the spaceport, where he entered his A.M.W.S. Angela and blasted off into space, wanting to get away from the place, from everyone, from Shion... Far away. He closed his eyes and fell into suspended animation, his body freezing in time due to the new trauma he had experienced...

It was many days later when he opened his eyes and came back into the physical world. He and Angela had traveled incredibly far, and after checking his flight data, discovered that he had unconsciously entered hyperspace. They had exited out in Gedalya Space. A distant explosion caught his ears. Gripping the controls, he swung Angelo around and a huge glowing white-blue orb came into his vision in the distance.

"What is that?" he wondered. Several flashes of light caught his attention and he used the head to zoom in on them, showing what looked like very incredible-looking mobile suits. They were currently engaging many Gnosis. A red glint in the corner of his vision alerted him to the presence of the Durandal.

"So, they're here then," Cerberos said to himself, sitting back in his chair. Angela hummed silently in his mind. "What? No, I don't think that's a good idea."

Angela spoke mentally.

"They can handle themselves," Cerberos said calmly. "They _do_ have a battleship after all."

Angela's consoles shone a bright green. Cerberos sighed.

"Very well, but if we die it's your fault!"

He tilted his feet downwards on the leg controls and pushed forwards on the sliding joystick handrips, which were connected through a series of 'limbs' to behind his seat, resembling arms. Angela beat its wings powerfully and with a gust of sparkling blue energy, shot off towards the space battle.

-----

KOS-MOS' blast wasn't able to penetrate the hypersphere, and Shion's hopes fell slightly.

"Oh no!" MOMO cried, while destroying a Gnosis with E.S. Zebulun's Aird Star attack. "Even KOS-MOS can't disturb it!"

"Chief, maybe this is beyond us!" Allen cried.

"Just believe in KOS-MOS!" Shion yelled, shaking her head. "It's all right. I know she can do it!"

"Setting weapon deployment to maximum output!" KOS-MOS announced.

She made to fire but suddenly a large whale-type Gnosis appeared in her way.

"Shion!" she called. "I cannot fire, there is an obstruction!"

"Someone, try to destroy the Gnosis that's blocking us!" Shion cried.

"We can't, we're all busy over here!" Jr. yelled as he and chaos poured fire into a swarm of Gnosis that surrounded E.S. Asher.

Suddenly, the whale Gnosis exploded, and something shot out from its shards. A pair of white wings appeared.

"Angel wings?" Shion whispered. The figure became more visible. She gasped.

It was Cerberos' A.M.W.S.!

"Cerberos!" Shion screamed, relieved that he had appeared. "Cerberos!"

"I was in the neighborhood," Cerberos replied dryly, his face popping up on her screen. "So, this is the thing that swallowed your friends up? Well, get at it girl!"

Shion's smile nearly hurt her face. "Yes," she replied thankfully. "Yes, we will. KOS-MOS!"

"Firing!" KOS-MOS said loudly (KOS-MOS never really yells, does she?) and her Tertiary Weapon System blasted a hole into the hypersphere. However, the hole began to shrink quickly.

"Shion, I require time to recharge the system," KOS-MOS warned.

"We won't make it in time!" Shion cried as the four E.S.' zoomed towards the fissure.

"Stand back!" Cerberos ordered. He brought himself in front of the closing hole and positioned himself. Angela's wings straightened out and folded over its head, forming a long and wide array of pointed feathertips. Blue ether energy began to gather across the wings and built up at the tips, glowing brightly. Inside the cockpit, Cerberos' eyes were shining brightly.

"Heavenly Redemption," he muttered, squeezing the triggers. His Ams was rocketed backwards as the wings fired out six huge blue beams of energy towards the small hole rapidly, impacting with a huge explosion. The attack ripped a much wider hole into the hypersphere, and the others rejoiced.

"Amazing!" MOMO cried, scanning the energy washover. "That attack was at least 2.25 times stronger than even KOS-MOS' attack!"

"Hurry in," Cerberos panted tiredly. "Before it closes."

"Are you okay?!" Shion asked frantically.

Cerberos laughed. "I'm fine," he said. "That attack just takes a lot out of Angela and I."

"Your Ams is named 'Angela'?" Jr. asked.

"Hurry!" Cerberos bit out, sagging in his seat. "Go now!"

E.S. Dinah appeared beside him (with KOS-MOS riding on the shoulder) and reached out and held onto Angela.

"Here, let me help you," Shion whispered, pulling the lethargic mobile suit with her.

His vision started to fade. "Cerberos..."

They all entered the hypersphere, which closed up right after E.S. Dinah and Angela entered.

-----

"His body is very weak and he has slipped into a minor coma," KOS-MOS said as she scanned Cerberos in the sick bay of the Elsa. They had found the ship after entering the hypersphere, but found out that the logical drive wasn't working, so they couldn't escape. After parking their E.S.'s and Cerberos' Ams in the hanger, they hurried him to the sick bay, where his unconscious form was placed into a bed.

"His mental signs seem stable, but there is very little activity," KOS-MOS continued, each proclamation driving another nail into Shion's heart. "His pulse is weak and his heart is sluggish. It appears that his body is symbiotically linked to his Ams, which allows them to share ether energy at a cost of his health."

"He sacrificed himself for us," MOMO said quietly. Shion's head snapped up.

"He did NOT sacrifice himself!" she yelled. "He's still alive, he's - he's - oh I'm so sorry for yelling at you MOMO!"

She began to cry and sank to her knees beside Cerberos' bed. MOMO came up behind her and hugged her back.

"It's okay Shion," she said sweetly. "I know how hard this is for you. But don't worry! I just know he's going to be okay!"

"Yeah he's a tough bastard he is!" Jr. added helpfully. "If anyone can make it, it's him!"

"His physical state has improved by 6 percent in the last hour," KOS-MOS also added supportively. "This leads me to believe that he could be significantly healed within a day or less."

Shion sniffled and wiped her eyes as she stood up. "Thank you guys," she said honestly. "You're truly the best friends anyone could have."

A quiet click and buzzing sound caught everyone's attention. Cerberos' bangle was slightly glowing and they could see it injecting DX medicine into his bloodstream from the green glow his veins put out.

"You see?" Jin said reassuringly, placing his hands on his sister's shoulders. "Look, he has his own safeguards at work already. He'll be fine soon!"

"Yeah, you're right Jin," Shion said happily. "You're always right you know?"

Jin ruffled her hair. "Perks of being an older brother," he said.

Shion nodded. "Can - can I have some time alone with him, please?" she begged.

Everyone agreed with her quickly, and they left the room. KOS-MOS turned around but Shion grabbed her hand.

"Not you KOS-MOS, I want you to stay!" Shion pleaded.

"Of course, Shion," the pretty android answered, and they both sat down next to Cerberos' sleeping form.

Shion took his hand in hers and rubbed it tenderly. Bringing it up to her lips, she kissed it lovingly. KOS-MOS watched all of this with a somewhat curious look.

"What is it like?" the synthetic human asked.

Shion was confused with KOS-MOS' vague question. "What's what like?" she asked.

"Being in love." was the response.

Shion looked at KOS-MOS with wide eyes. "Cerberos must really have done something to you!" she commented with a smile. "We can go check it out later."

KOS-MOS nodded. "Understood," she said. "And about...?"

Shion sighed and placed Cerberos' hand in KOS-MOS'. The android started slightly at the familiar sensation she felt but calmed down quickly.

"I guess it's like the most wonderful and terrifying feeling in the world," Shion said. "I mean, you're happy, you're _really_ happy but at the same time you're afraid of losing it. Do you understand?"

"Somewhat."

"And then, being in love is like feeling all funny, you know?" Shion said. She giggled at KOS-MOS' slightly sardonic look. "Okay, maybe you don't. I guess, I don't know, it's like feeling butterflies in your stomach?"

"In my stomach? I don't understand your meaning Shion."

"Well, a butterfly's wings flutter right?" At KOS-MOS' nod in affirmation, Shion continued. "So imagine feeling that fluttering all over inside your stomach. It makes you woozy, and lightheaded, but in a good way. And then your cheeks redden and start to feel warm because of the person making you feel this way, and everytime you touch -"

"You feel as if you can do anything, as long as that person is beside you," KOS-MOS finished. Shion stared at her in shock.

"Yeah, that's exactly it," she said. She frowned. "KOS-MOS...?"

The blue haired woman looked down at Cerberos. "That is how I feel whenever I touch him," she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Shion gasped. "Oh my," was all she could say.


	6. Discoveries

Hah, I came pretty close to my 'No Lemons' policy. But shit, this may be the first multi-ship I've written in like, a year! Still, it's pretty racy and on the edge. I tried to make it as less-graphic as possible (through 3 rewrites, ack) so hopefully my attempts weren't for moot. If you can get past the sorta-smut, you'll understand some new things about KOS-MOS.

* * *

_Discoveries_

"KOS-MOS..." Shion said unsuredly. "Are you... falling in love with Cerberos?"

KOS-MOS shook her head. "I do not know," she said. "But the more I touch him, the longer my sense of feeling stays. It is hard to believe, but my body is growing nerves. It completely defies my logical system."

She looked slightly frustrated, and clenched Cerberos' hand tighter. "Shion... I - I feel afraid," she stated.

Shion wrapped her arm around KOS-MOS' shoulder comfortingly. "Don't be," she whispered. "This feeling is a wonderful thing! It just shows that you really are more human than you think. You're more than a machine KOS-MOS, and I bet you have a heart as well."

"If I feel pain, my combat capabilities will decrease by 2.1," KOS-MOS said. "Pain will hinder my abilities."

"Isn't it worth being able to feel?" Shion asked. She took KOS-MOS' other hand and placed it on her terribly soft cheek. "How does it feel?"

KOS-MOS stared at her. "Very soft," she answered. "You are very soft Shion."

Shion smiled. "Imagine all the other things you can experience!" she said. "Don't worry about fighting KOS-MOS. Not at the moment."

"But you are in love with Cerberos, are you not?" KOS-MOS asked. Shion flushed.

"Maybe, I don't know," she replied. "He's certainly growing on me, that's for sure. I think I could fall in love with him."

"Is it wrong for two people to love the same person?"

"Well, you can't blame them, can you?" Shion asked with a smile. "Although most people tend to think it's wrong for two people to be with the same person."

"That is like polygamy, is it not?" KOS-MOS asked. Shion looked shocked.

"KOS-MOS!" she said, scandalized. "Who taught you that?"

"Assistant Togashi."

"I'll have to have words with him!" Shion fumed. "Who knows what else he's filled your head with?"

KOS-MOS thought for a moment. "Shion, the nerves that are growing inside my body appear to be synthetic as well," she said. "If you could create a program that can allow for manual shut-off of the nerves, then my combat capabilities won't be hindered."

Shion nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I think I can do that, maybe with Allen's help," she mused. "In the meantime, maybe we should spend more time with Cerberos? Would you like that?"

KOS-MOS nodded, her large crimson eyes looking at the young man on the bed. "I would like that... very much Shion," she answered. She continued to hold Cerberos' hand. "He is very warm."

"He is, isn't he?" Shion said with a smile, placing her hand on his arm. "Sleeping next to him is so nice. You'd fall asleep right away."

"I do not sleep Shion," KOS-MOS said. "I am only capable of powering down."

"Well, maybe you can sleep in the future!" Shion said stubbornly. "Who knows how much Cerberos can affect you?"

"Understood," KOS-MOS said. "Perhaps I would even have pleasant dreams."

"It's getting dark," Shion announced, looking out the porthole. "We'll probably be heading out tomorrow to look around. We should get some rest."

"Yes Shion," KOS-MOS said, standing up. She gave Cerberos' sleeping form a peculiar look. "You should get all the rest you can. I will continue to monitor Cerberos' vital signs since I do not require rest."

"Okay," Shion yawned. She leaned over and kissed Cerberos on the lips quickly. "Wake me up if anything changes, okay?"

"Understood."

Shion stopped by the door and turned back to look at KOS-MOS. "KOS-MOS," she called.

"Yes Shion?"

"I - I think it would be alright if we both loved Cerberos," she said with a red face. "I think he deserves the love of two strong women. He's had so much trauma in his life, that maybe just mine isn't enough. Well, good night."

"Good night Shion," KOS-MOS returned.

Shion left the room and KOS-MOS stood there for a moment longer. Looking at Cerberos for a moment, she left the room quietly, her heels clicking on the floor. Walking outside, she entered the women's dorm and found MOMO sleeping on her bed, and the sounds of Shion in the shower. Heading over to the bed that was reserved for her (but never used), KOS-MOS opened the dresser next to it and found some spare clothes that Shion had always kept in it, since she never used it. Pulling out a white nightgown, KOS-MOS examined it with scrutinzing red eyes. It would be adequate.

-----

The next morning, Shion went to check on Cerberos, and get an update from KOS-MOS. Entering the room, she stopped dead in her tracks at what lay in front of her.

KOS-MOS was snuggled up next to Cerberos, and was hugging his side as she lay draped on top of his sleeping form. She was dressed in a thin white nightgown that suspiciously looked like one of Shion's, and her larger bust stretched the top slightly as she lay on her side. Her blue bangs was unconstrained from the visor she usually wore, and her long hair was wrapped around hers and Cerberos' bodies as they slept. She had such a look of content on her eyes as she slept. She was sleeping...

Cerberos' eyes fluttered and he yawned, waking up. Shion excitedly hurried over to his side as he blearily blinked into the waking world. He caught sight of KOS-MOS on his side and looked at Shion with wide eyes.

"I didn't know about this!" he said quickly, and Shion laughed.

"Oh Cerberos, I'm sorry," Shion explained. "I kind of put it into KOS-MOS' head that she might be able to sleep if she was with you. I didn't expect she'd go _that_ far."

"Hey Shion, how's Cerberos doin - whoa, what the heck?!" Jr. yelped, upon seeing KOS-MOS entangled with Cerberos.

"Not my fault!" Cerberos exclaimed. The others began to pile into the room.

"Uh, Cerberos, you do realize that Shion is in the room right?" Jin asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh Jin, it's okay, really!" Shion placated. She leaned over KOS-MOS' face and smiled. "Look! I think she's dreaming!"

"Dreaming?" Allen asked, pulling his PDA out and connecting to KOS-MOS' system. "Incredible! You're right Chief, look! She's showing high mental activity simliar to people in a sleeping, dreaming state! This is amazing!"

"Mmm," KOS-MOS murmured, waking up. She opened her crimson eyes and sat up in the bed, blinking owlishly at the crowd surrounding her. "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong KOS-MOS, in fact, everything's great!" Shion said excitedly, pulling the android into a hug. "How do you feel?"

KOS-MOS mused for a moment. "I feel very refreshed, as if I have just powered up after a full charge," she cited. "I also remember having a dream about walking along a beach with you and Cerberos."

"Incredible! Incredible!" Allen kept muttering in awe. "Incredible!"

"Yes, we get that much," Captain Matthews grumbled. "So you're saying our Robo-Sis is like - human now?"

"I guess it's something like that," Shion said with a finger to her lips. "Allen, KOS-MOS told me that she was growing nervous systems. Can you help me design a shut-off program for them?"

"Oh, to enable or disable pain reception?" Allen asked, catching on quickly. "Sure! Let's go!"

"I'm great, thanks for asking," Cerberos mumbled, retreating back under the covers. KOS-MOS placed her hand on top of his head and patted it.

"Oh Cerberos, I'm so sorry, I completely forgot about you!" Shion apologized. She skipped over to where he was lying under the covers and pulled on them. He poked his head out and recieved a kiss from Shion, while Allen gagged in the background. "I'm going to go with Allen and write up some software, okay?"

"Sure, what should I do?"

"Spend time with KOS-MOS!"

-----

"So, how do you like it?" Cerberos asked as he and KOS-MOS sat in the mess hall, while he ate some curry. It was very spicy. KOS-MOS looked up from her bowl.

"It burns my tongue," she responded. "But the taste is somewhat addicting. However, I decided that I like the sandwiches more."

"Agreed," Cerberos said. "I just wanted to try curry out, I've never had it before. So I guess this means you can eat as well?"

"It does."

"Why do you think that this is happening to you?" he asked curiously, staring at the cerulean haired goddess. She had a usual pause as she thought.

"I do not know," she finally said. "But at this point, I have just accepted it as something my logical drive can't understand, and am becoming accustomed to it."

"Hmm," Cerberos hummed. "Where'd you get that nightgown?"

"It is Shion's."

"Nice."

"I suppose."

"I'm bored," Cerberos declared as they got up and headed back to the sick bay, where he had decided to stay. Mostly because of the readily available medicines, but mostly because it had a single bedroom and a lock on the door. Sharing a dormitory wasn't his kind of thing and he'd sleep in Angela if he had to. They both sat down on his bed.

"Is there anything you want to do?" he asked KOS-MOS. She thought for a moment.

"That action that Shion performed on you this morning," she said. "What was it?"

Cerberos looked confused. "What, the kiss?" he asked.

"Yes," KOS-MOS replied. "What is it like?"

Cerberos leaned back on the bed. "Well, it's very nice, I suppose," he said. "Most kisses are pleasant, but Shion's are almost electrifying and even the slightest touch of her lips on mine makes me lose my breath."

He smiled and opened his eyes to see KOS-MOS' face mere inches away from his. "Er."

"I want to feel a kiss," she said, staring deeply into his eyes. "Please?"

"Uh, Shion might get angry..."

"She would most likely encourage it," KOS-MOS reasoned.

"Well... if she does get angry it's all your fault then!" Cerberos said triumphantly.

"Very well," KOS-MOS agreed. "How do you initiate a kiss? Is there more to just pressing one's lips on another's?"

"Well, there are several ways to do it," Cerberos said, placing his arm on KOS-MOS' waist. He moved them so that he was now on top. Surprisingly, she felt much lighter now. "The first is a gentle kiss, I suppose you can call it 'searching'."

"Searching?" KOS-MOS repeated. "What does that mean?"

Steeling his resolve, Cerberos leaned down and pecked KOS-MOS on the lips, making her draw her breath in sharply. Her lips were like velvet, like Shion's.

"Searching," Cerberos whispered, feeling the android shudder beneath him. "It's like... trying to see if the person you kissed would like to kiss again."

"And if she does?" KOS-MOS asked just as quietly.

"Then I suppose one would then give her a proper kiss," Cerberos said, leaning back down again and capturing KOS-MOS' lips in a sweet and tender closed-mouth kiss that had full lip contact for a few moments. Their lips melded into eachother's softly and he pulled back again. This time, KOS-MOS was breathing slightly harder.

"After a proper kiss, I guess you could stop it there, but you could really go on much farther," he said, leaning on his elbows as he peered at KOS-MOS beneath him. She was still wearing Shion's nightgown, and the others were out patrolling the area.

"How much further?" KOS-MOS whispered. Cerberos leaned down and kissed her again, though a little more thoroughly. He opened his mouth slightly and licked her bottom lip with his tongue.

"When one does that, it means they want you to open your mouth a bit," he said, his lips moving against hers.

"Like this?" KOS-MOS asked, opening her mouth a little.

"Yes," Cerberos breathed, using his lips to open her mouth a little more. He pushed his tongue into her mouth. She made a surprised noise unfitting of an android and went totally slack beneath him. "As you can see," he said, pulling his tongue out after having massaged hers, "That's an open-mouthed kiss, or a French Kiss. It involves using your tongue to carass the other."

"I understand," KOS-MOS said before Cerberos kissed her fully again, his tongue snaking around hers as they moved around inside their mouths. She tasted delicious, like strawberries.

Soon, the need for air broke them apart, and Cerberos raised his head away from hers, both panting slightly. "That pretty much covers kissing on the mouth," he said.

"There are other places that can be kissed?" KOS-MOS asked almost eagerly.

"Of course," Cerberos said, almost insulted. "There's much more pleasure than mouth-kissing."

"Show me."

"Well, you've seen kisses on the cheek, but those are nothing," he answered, moving to place his lips near her neck. "The neck, for example..."

He began to place feathery light kisses along her slender neck, and craned her head to allow him better access. "Maybe around the ear..."

He began to kiss behind her ear, brushing some of her hair away. KOS-MOS let out a small gasp when he nipped lightly behind her ear and shuddered. "Ah, you see I've just discovered a sensitive spot."

"Yes, it was sensitive," KOS-MOS murmured. "Why is it much more sensitive than other areas?"

"It's a pleasure spot," Cerberos said, returning to her neck and working his way down its side. "You may have more..."

She let out a soft moan as he worked down her neck to her collarbone. He nibbled it lightly and she squirmed slightly. "There are other places I could play with, but I think we should stop for now," he announced. She grabbed his arms.

"No, don't stop," she pleaded, loving every single touch he gave her.

"If you're sure..." Cerberos said unsurely.

"I am sure."

"Don't blame me then," he said, pulling at the thin strap on her left shoulder. "So as I continue downwards... to your shoulder, and maybe lower..."

He pulled the nightgown down some more, revealing the swell of her large breast, and kissed the top of it. KOS-MOS let out a purr of pleasure.

"It is sensitive there as well," she sighed. "Please continue."

Cerberos pulled the side of her nightgown down as far as he could, making it wrap under her breast, pushing it upwards. As expected of an engineered piece of perfection, her breast was perfectly round-shaped and perky, despite being large. He cupped it in his hand and kneaded softly, causing KOS-MOS to arch her back.

"That wasn't kissing, yet it elicited pleasure," she moaned.

"Yes, touching it like this will also bring even more pleasure," Cerberos said, lowering his head. "But if I know your reaction, then you might enjoy this..."

He placed his mouth over her erect nipple and clamped down, running his tongue over it. KOS-MOS let out soft shriek. "Very sensitive, are we?"

"Yes!" she panted. She voiced her displeasure when Cerberos stopped his ministrations, but he only left to lock the door before returning.

"Now, where was I?" he wondered, before attacking her breast again. She squirmed underneath him as he worked on her, and on her own accord, pulled the other strap down, pushing the nightgown down to her waist. Cerberos followed her actions and palmed her other breast as he suckled on the one his mouth was occupied with. He alternated between breasts, making the young android moan loudly and did many things to them, making her back arch in pleasure.

"That was the pleasure your breasts can give you," he said to a gasping KOS-MOS, who lay underneath him. "There's even more than that."

"More?" KOS-MOS asked. "Show me more!"

"Okay then," Cerberos said, moving down her body. He touched and licked at her very toned torso before coming up to the crumpled nightgown at her waist. Peeling it away, he slid it down her legs and shucked it off her body, making the woman automatically close her legs to hide her sex.

"I don't understand," KOS-MOS said almost shyly.

"Don't worry, you'll absolutely love this," Cerberos said, opening her thighs up to see folds of flesh. "Man you're perfect. That designer of yours, Kevin Winnicot must have been one hell of a pervert as well as genius."

He moved his head near her entrance and placed his tongue at the bottom of her folds. He licked all the way up to her clitoris, making her spasm.

"I felt a jolt run down my thighs!" KOS-MOS exclaimed. "It was pain, but a good pain!"

"Yes, this area generates the most pleasure," Cerberos said, using his fingers to part her opening slightly. "Just lay back and feel it. You're amazing. An android, but also fully human as well."

"I am somewhat human, if not a heavily armored one - Oohh," KOS-MOS moaned. She had no idea what Cerberos was doing, but she never wanted it to stop. This feeling of pleasure far exceeded that of kissing or holding hands. It reminded her of the act of copulation between humans. "Is this called 'copulation'?" she asked.

Cerberos withdrew his tongue. "No, this is foreplay, the actions that lead to copulation," he said.

"Will we... copulate?" KOS-MOS asked nervously.

"I prefer the term 'make love'," Cerberos said, moving back to between her legs. "And only if you want to."

"If it feels pleasurable, I would like to experience it," KOS-MOS said, her face feeling hot for some reason.

"It will hurt at first," Cerberos announced after some licks. "You have a barrier inside your womanhood known as a 'hymen', which signifies your virginity."

"Virginity?" KOS-MOS asked.

"For a highly intelligent being, you don't know much about the nitty gritty do you?" Cerberos laughed. "You're a virgin, untouched by man. When you make love for the first time, the man's penis has to break through your barrier, the hymen and it causes you to bleed because it tears right though the thin membrane."

"That does not sound pleasurable," KOS-MOS stated.

"It only hurts for a little while, and then after that it's supposed to be blissfull I hear."

"Then I would like to make love with you Cerberos," KOS-MOS declared. "It is because of you that I can feel, so I only think it logical that I give my 'virginity' to you as well."

"If you're sure KOS-MOS," Cerberos said. "This is a very important thing."

"I am sure," she answered, red eyes meeting red halos. "I confessed to Shion that I may be falling in love with you. This only seems proper."

"What?" Cerberos gasped, stopping his work on KOS-MOS' flower. "That could be a problem with Shion..."

KOS-MOS shook her head. "Shion had actually suggested that both of us could be capable of loving you," she explained. "So please, do not stop..."

-----

Some time later, Cerberos and KOS-MOS lay on the bed together, both completely naked under the covers. KOS-MOS was still awake, and she was stroking Cerberos' back as she lay spooned up behind him. He had been right about lovemaking. The initial entry was extremely painful, and she had actually wept because of it, but some time later it had begun to feel pleasurable, like he had said. And then after that... When she had awoken after passing out from the intense waves of pleasure that rocked her body, Cerberos had explained that she had had an orgasm, the peak of sexual pleasure. He had then apologized, and fallen asleep shortly, and she lay there, still awake.

She had run a diagnostic on her body and found that though she had bleed real, actual blood, that she was physically fine. Her vagina was sore, but managable, and her legs still weak from lovemaking. Cerberos had excellent stamina. She hugged his body to hers and smiled into his neck. His smell was wonderful. She had noticed her new senes of smell not to long ago, and had taken great fun in smelling her body, his body, and the scents of lovemaking, which were arousing.

There was a knock at the door. KOS-MOS didn't really want to get up, so she picked up a plastic cup and tossed it at the pressure pad that unlocked the door. It hit with pin-point accuracy and the door unlocked.

"Cerberos?" Shion's voice called. "Are you decent? Can I come in?"

"He is not decent, but you may come in alone," KOS-MOS called back.

There was a pause. Shion entered the room slowly, her eyes on KOS-MOS, her bare shoulders that peaked out from the covers, and Cerberos' sleeping form.

"How was it?" Shion asked after a long silence.

"I feel as if the only word I can say to express the feeling is 'incredible'," KOS-MOS answered with a smile.

Shion laughed. "KOS-MOS!" she giggled. "You have such a silly smile on your face!"

"I'm sorry Shion."

"No, no, it's okay!" Shion laughed. "You look adorable." She looked at Cerberos, who was still sleeping. "Was he gentle?"

"Very," KOS-MOS replied. "He said that I was a virgin, and that he would take care of me."

"That's Cerberos for you," Shion said fondly. "Always taking care of others."

"Shion, I think I am in love with him," KOS-MOS said suddenly. "I'm sorry."

Shion shook her head with a smile. "There's nothing to be sorry about KOS-MOS," She scolded. "You can't control who you love. Once he wakes up, we'll ask Cerberos if he's interested in - in - well you know!"

KOS-MOS looked amused. "If he is like any other male, he would be very interested," she said.

Shion looked amused herself. "Were you just sarcastic KOS-MOS?" she asked. "My, my, Cerberos is having a much better effect on you than I thought!"

"I like this change."

"Me too."

KOS-MOS smiled at Shion, her face slightly red. It was odd to be lying there naked next to what she assumed would be her new lover while his other future lover sat next to her. But still, she felt in her heart that everything would be okay.

Yes, her heart.


	7. Twin Loss

_Twin Loss_

"Shion, are you really okay with this?" Cerberos asked, after having gotten dressed. KOS-MOS stood next to his bed with Shion, back in her frame gear. "I mean, I can't say that it doesn't appeal to me but what are your thoughts about... this?"

He waved his hand around them to signify what he meant. Shion gave him a small smile.

"I'll admit that it makes me kind of nervous," she conceded, "But really Cerberos. You've done so much for us in these past few days and given so much of your health to keep us safe. You're the _most_ caring person I've ever met!"

Cerberos darkened. "Maybe I'm just trying to atone for my sins," he muttered. "How can you - either of you - want to be near me, knowing what I am?"

"What are you?" Shion asked, cupping his cheeks with her hands. "To me, you're Cerberos. That should be good enough, right?"

"I agree with Shion," KOS-MOS added. "I am merely an android, but this metamorphosis that I am undergoing will eventually change me into something akin to a Realian. That is also because of you Cerberos."

Cerberos frowned. "I..."

Shion pulled him into a hug, and KOS-MOS clasped him from behind. "From now on, it'll be the three of us, okay?" Shion asked, before kissing him. He deepened it and she moaned into his mouth as their tongues collided. They pulled away some several seconds later. "Okay?"

"Yeah," Cerberos said finally. "Okay."

"Hey guys, Jr. wants to know if you're ready to -" MOMO stopped as she walked into the room, sniffing the air. "Why does it smell like pheromones in here?"

Cerberos and KOS-MOS shared a look, one that MOMO caught. "Ooooh, you didn't?!" she squealed. She turned to Shion. "Shion, I thought -"

Shion smiled at the young girl. "Don't worry about it MOMO," she said soothingly. "Everything's okay."

MOMO looked unsure. "If you say so..." she said. She looked at KOS-MOS. "What's it like?"

Shion looked aghast. "MOMO!" she cried.

"What?!"

"You're too young to be thinking of such things!"

"I'm not too young! Technically I'm 12!" MOMO defended.

"Realians don't age though, right?" Cerberos asked.

MOMO shrugged. "Technically we do, but very slowly," she said. "Mommy told me that someday I might even be able to have children!"

"Really?" Shion asked in surprise. "That's wonderful!"

"Well then, I pity your future husband then," Cerberos said with a laugh. "Imagine, he'll be old and wrinkly while you still look like a teenager! Poor guy..."

-----

"Are you sure you're good enough to go?" Shion asked from the cockpit of E.S. Dinah. KOS-MOS was co-piloting beneath her in the co-pilot seat. Cerberos' face popped up on the holographic screen.

"Yeah, we're fine!" he answered as Angela powered up. "As long as I don't overdo it of course."

"Be careful Ceres," Shion said.

"'Ceres'?" he repeated.

She giggled. "I shortened that mouthful you call a name," she said. "Do you like it?"

"Other than making me more effiminate than I already look, sure," he said with a smile. "Hey Shion, don't push yourself either okay?"

"I promise."

They traveled around the area, which had many twisting paths and levels, and ran into a large formation of purple crystals.

"What's that?" Shion asked, moving up to it.

"This is a Geocrystal," KOS-MOS explained after some scans.

They made to destroy it, but even their E.S.' couldn't break the large crystal.

"It seems we can't destroy it even with the power of the E.S.'," Ziggy announced. "There's a path to the left however."

They moved up a path that led to a section above the Geocrystal they found. Sitting there was another crystal. Jr. used E.S. Asher to hit the crystal, and it fell below, smashing into the first crystal they found. Both shattered.

"Hmm," Shion said. "So if we hit the crystal with another, we can destroy it."

They traveled up the mountain and strategically destroyed all the crystals blocking their path. Sometimes, they ran into strange creatures that they had to kill, but so far they were doing fine.

At the very top of the mountain, KOS-MOS saw a crystal on a ledge. Using some calculations, she deduced that pushing this crystal over would destroy the crystal blocking their way to another area. She fired a beam at it and it fell over. Some seconds later, they heard the noise of shattering crystal.

"Good job KOS-MOS!" Shion praised. "Let's go back down."

It took about ten minutes to make their way back down, and they entered what looked like a huge cave.

"Whoa!" Jr. said, looking around with chaos. "Where are we?"

"It looks like a cave," MOMO said while Ziggy nodded from below. They all looked around the expansive area. "A very wide one."

Jr. spotted a tablet on the wall up ahead. "Hmm?" he wondered. "Is that Hebrew? No, maybe it's ancient Aramiac? ... 'Behold the great...' Ah, I don't know. I can't read it."

"'And behold,'" MOMO read, "'there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.'"

"Wow!" Jr. said. "You can read it?'

MOMO shook her head. "No, I recognize it," she answered. "They're exactly the same words that I've seen before. It was recorded and stored in Daddy's Y-Data."

"Mizrahi's?" Jr. asked.

"Look out!" Cerberos yelled, and the E.S.' scattered as a laser canon fired into their group.

"Hey!" a voice yelled. "What do you think you're doing?!"

Everyone looked to see a figure dressed in blue, wearing a matching blue facemask standing on top of a large E.S..

"Don't you know that it's rude to come into someone's home uninvited?!" the man in blue yelled.

"Testament?!" Jr. gasped.

"You!" Shion accused. "You were in the Song of Nephilim!"

"Uh, who is this joker?" Cerberos asked. "What's a Testament?"

"Hey shut up kid!" the Blue Testament yelled. "This doesn't concern you at the moment!"

"Jeez," Cerberos muttered, slouching back in his seat. "Someone's got some issues. Fine, whatever, continue."

"So you remember me," the Blue Testament told Shion. "Well, isn't that nice! I find that rather interesting. You see I remember you too. I remember that you let me die!"

He took off his mask and everyone but Cerberos gasped.

"But Lieutenant Virgil!" Shion gasped in shock. "How?!"

'Virgil' sneered. "Now don't get all sentimental on me," he said. "It's not like I've been hiding out here in this dump all this time just so the two of us can talk about old memories." He spreadsout his arms. "Hardly! No, I've got business to attend to with your craft! "

The large E.S. he was on transformed into a robotic weaponry platform and fired again at the group, who evaded it again.

"Wait, Lieutenant!" Shion cried. "You're right! It's true th - that... that was -"

"Like I've told you before," Virgil interrupted, "all your self-righteous crap makes me sick!"

Suddenly, the tablets overhead began to emanate and glow.

"Jr.!" MOMO called in alarm. "Look at the letters on the wall!"

Suddenly, all the E.S.' began to emanate as well.

"Damn!" Virgil swore. "It's already started."

"Wait!" Jr. shouted. "What's going on?!"

Virgil laughed loudly. "You were riding them without even knowing about that?" he asked incredulously. "Oh, whoops. And you're still 'compelled' to ride them now, huh? Ha, ha, ha! Now this is really funny!"

"What are you talking about?!" Shion asked angrily, flaring Dinah's wings out a bit.

Suddenly, all the Animas stopped reacting to the tablets. Virgil looked around.

"It's quite simple!" he said. "That is the kind of place this is, to those Vessels of Anima you're using."

He kept thoroughly confusing everyone, which forced them to eventually fight him. They had defeated him after a long battle, but he wasn't beaten yet. The White Testament appeared and Jr. recognized Albedo's voice. Albedo forced the Vessel of Anima out from Virgil's E.S. and the craft fell to the ground, dead as the vessel was taken to the skies. He and Virgil dissapeared on his white E.S.. Then, the group's E.S.' suddenly started emanating with the tablets again and they mysteriously shut down.

They all exited their craft and Shion dissmissed the E.S.'. She looked up at Cerberos, who was still operational in his Ams.

"Well, for once an Ams is better than an E.S.," she said with a wry smile. "Are you okay up there, Cerberos?"

"I'm just peachy," he replied through the speakers. "Are you guys going to be alright on the ground?"

"We'll be fine," Shion replied, teleporting her M.W.S.. "This entrance looks like it won't fit Angela. Do you want to join us down here?"

The cockpit opened and Cerberos hopped out, landing lightly on the ground. After his Ams sealed itself, Shion dissmissed it with her PDA. They all looked towards the big entrance.

"I guess forward is the only way to go," Shion sighed. Cerberos teleported his sword and they all walked into the next area.

-----

After a trip through the ancient ruins, they emerged out in what appeared to be the surface of the planet. They stood in a graveyard of some sort. Shion had a headache all of a sudden, but didn't faint this time. Still, she held onto Cerberos' hand as they left the graveyard and went into the next area, which was underground. MOMO discovered that the tomb held coffins with the names of E.S. suits on them. They found a stone cross and elaborate coffin and Shion realized that it was the same one from KOS-MOS' subconscious. KOS-MOS had no memory of it, even though it was in her mind, however deeply.

As they made to leave the tomb, a laser fired out from the ledge above, and KOS-MOS activated her barrier before blocking it. They all looked up to see T-elos standing on the ledge with a smirk on her face.

"T-elos!" Shion gasped angrily. "Why is _she_ here?"

T-elos looked at them through her special visor. "I'm here for the Thirteenth Key," she said icily. "The time of awakening has arrived."

She deactivated her visor and it slid up to reveal her cold blue eyes.

"Wait a minute!" Ziggy said. "What is she?"

"She's KOS-MOS?" MOMO asked in confusion.

"So that's the T-Weapon?" Jr. asked after a moment's pause. "Someone has a twisted sense of humor, making her look exactly like KOS-MOS."

T-elos sneered at KOS-MOS, who looked back at her indifferently. "A simple doll that doesn't even understand its reason for existence!" she declared, holding her left arm out to the side and activating her power. "To ensure that I continue to exist as myself... KOS-MOS... I'm going to destroy you."

Everyone brandished their weapons and tried to attack T-elos, but she avoided them easily. KOS-MOS and Cerberos hung back, watching the fight while holding hands.

"There's no need to rush," T-elos said, swatting away Jin's katana. She activated her Overtaker, charging her boost. "I'll dispose of each of you in turn."

She charged her Overtaker again, creating more power. "This is where you die!"

Shion landed a lucky hit just in time and knocked T-elos back with the pronged blade of her M.W.S.. KOS-MOS quickly teleported her gatling gun and fired at T-elos, causing the area around her to burst into flames.

"Is it over?" Shion asked hopefully.

Jr. twirled his Desert Eagle. "Ha!" he said. "Some top-secret weapon that was."

"Shion," KOS-MOS said. "The enemy's unit output is 4.75 times higher than mine. Therefore, we are at a clear disadvantage."

"What?" Shion gasped. "Wait, what do you mean?"

KOS-MOS placed her arm in front of Shion. "I am going to delay the enemy unit," she stated. "Please retreat immediately."

T-elos stepped out from the flames, her hand on her hip as she stood there, mocking them.

"What the?!" Shion sputtered. "After all those attacks, she's still completely unarmed?!"

KOS-MOS ran towards T-elos, and the two engaged in hand-to-hand combat. T-elos was clearly the superior fighter however, and nearly ripped KOS-MOS' arm off if the blue haired warrior hadn't managed to break free just in time. T-elos threw KOS-MOS around the entire area, causing her to smash into stalacites and hit the floor hard.

"It's useless," a voice called from the darkness as T-elos paused in her attack.

Suddenly, Roth (from the testing day) appeared.

"We've already completely analyzed her combat patterns."

"Why are you here?!" Shion shouted. "What do you mean, analyzed? Do you mean..." she gasped. "That task!"

Roth approached them. "It's probably against your wills, but it's KOS-MOS' fate to be destroyed by T-elos in this place."

"How can you even say that to me?!" Shion cried hysterically. "Why are you and T-elos even here to begin with?!"

"The answer is simple," Roth said. "My job is to observe you."

He changed into the Red Testament and everyone gasped. Meanwhile, T-elos and KOS-MOS resumed their fighting.

"You have no time to be surprised," the Red Testament said. He nodded to the battle. "Your princess is losing."

KOS-MOS was slashed on the face, and her visor fell away in two pieces. To T-elos' surprise, a drop of blood fell from the cut on KOS-MOS' cheek. In her surprise, she was caught off-guard as KOS-MOS kicked her into the far back wall, creating a crater.

"Shion, I will only last 140 seconds with my current capacity," KOS-MOS announced when she landed. She wiped the trail of blood that went down to her chin off her face. She looked at it in awe. "Please hurry!"

"No way!" Shion shouted. "I refuse to leave you behind KOS-MOS!"

T-elos erupted from the wall and grabbed KOS-MOS by the leg, throwing her away. She charged towards Shion in order to attack her, but her fist was stopped by not KOS-MOS' hand, but Cerberos'.

"What's this?" the Red Testament murmured to himself. "This is a new development.

"Cerberos!" Shion cried.

Cerberos gritted his teeth as he fought against T-elos' strength. Somehow, she had gotten much stronger. KOS-MOS picked herself up from the rubble she had created and watched the two battle arm muscle against eachother before hurrying to Shion's side.

"You!" T-elos roared.

"You got lucky last time," Cerberos growled, wrapping his fingers around her fist. He gripped it tightly and yanked hard, while lashing out at her feet, causing her to go horizontal in the air. As he pulled her towards himself, he used his left fist to smash it into her forehead, sending her back several feet. He rolled his shoulders in anticipation. "How about a rematch?"

T-elos stood up straight and looked back at the Red Testament, who nodded thoughtfully. She turned back and charged Cerberos, who adopted a sturdy fighting stance.

_Everytime I attempt to predict his actions, he changes them!_ she thought furiously, throwing out a punch, which he dodged easily. She followed up with a sweeping kick and then a rearward thrust with the opposite leg, but he managed to avoid them as well. _How can a human move like that?_

She pulled back and Cerberos charged this time, landing a hit to her face and a powerful kick to her left thigh, making her stumble. As she did, he thrust his arm out, gripping her by the neck and he threw her downwards, slamming her headfirst into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

-----

"He's incredible!" Jin said in awe as they watched Cerberos and T-elos trade blows. They managed to land a few on eachother, but they kept at it. "Now I understand what you meant Shion."

"I hope he'll be okay," Shion said worriedly. "If she uses any of her projectile weapons, he won't last long against her at all!"

KOS-MOS placed her hand on Shion's arm. "Have faith in him, Shion," she said, her crimson eyes watching the battle.

T-elos managed to grab Cerberos by the shoulder, and she threw him up into the air, making him collide painfully into a stalacite. She quickly teleported her beam canon and fired at him.

"Cerberos!" Shion screamed.

Cerberos shook the stars out of his head and managed to teleport his broadsword and angle it in front of his body just as the laser beam hit. It was deflected off his blade and it impacted off in the distance, causing a stalacite to fall to the ground. Cerberos landed heavily on his feet and raised the sword beside his head.

T-elos sneered, and vanished her canon. Jogging back, she picked up the stalacite and spun it around a few times, before hurling it towards Cerberos. He gripped his sword in both hands and jumped at the flying chunk of rock, which was around forty feet long. He brought his sword down powerfully and cut it in half, causing the two pieces to slam into the wall behind him harmlessly as he continued to sail towards T-elos. She nimbly dodged his next slash and leapt up to the ledge, where she looked down at him. 

"I must admit that you are an exceptional combatant," T-elos conceded, bringing her hands to her chest. Several pieces of her frame opened up to form her phase transfer canon. "But can you survive this?!"

"A phase transfer canon!" Shion gasped. "She's going to fire it at this close range! CERBEROS!"

T-elos looked at the blue-haired beauty as the red orb grew on her chest. "KOS-MOS, what is the actual reason for your existence?" she asked. "You are nothing more than an empty vessel. How pathetic. You'll never be able to accomplish anything. Return to dust, so that I may truly…awaken!"

T-elos fired at Cerberos, who brought his sword in front of him vertically, tip-down. He pressed his flat palm against the blade to steady it. The large red orb smashed into him, forcing him back several feet as he cried out from the pain. T-elos cried out in bloodlust as she forced the orb to push against Cerberos powerfully, causing him to slide back slowly, while his clothes and skin began to burn. His hands were already beginning to disintigrate, and the skin simply started to turn into particles as they drifted off his flesh.

"NO!" he yelled, reinforcing his stance against the crushing power against him. "I won't let you hurt Shion or KOS-MOS!"

With a mighty yell, Cerberos lashed out with his sword with all his strength, forcing the red orb to fly back at T-elos, who quickly dissapated it. He collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily. His hands and forearms were all but ruined, and his clothes on his torso had all but turned to ash, as his body was covered in serious burns. His left side of his face was also charred since he turned his face away from the scorching heat, and his hair had been fried off.

"Cerberos!" Shion cried, tears pouring down her eyes. She didn't notice that her pendant was reacting to her emotions, and had started to glow. Cerberos slumped to the ground, his sword clattering right next to him.

"Cerberos!" KOS-MOS called, running up to him. She lifted him into her arms and observed his vital signs. They weren't good at all. A loud noise made her look up. T-elos had activated her phase transfer canon again. The sadistic android fired again, and KOS-MOS stood in front of Cerberos' badly damaged body and attempted to use her barrier.

_For Shion,_ she thought as the barrier began to fail. She looked back at Cerberos' unmoving body. _Cerberos... I once asked Shion if feeling pain would make me complete. Thanks to you, I am now complete. I will see you soon... my love._

Everything went dark. She didn't dream.


	8. The Past

_The Past_

Shion awoke with a start. She had just had another memory of her time with Kevin, her late fiancee. They were at his house in the country, and she was watching the stars after making love. Then, U-DO had visited her again and caused her to feel pain in her head again. Shaking her head in an effort to shake away the cobwebs, she looked over to the bed in front of her. After arriving in what appeared to be the past, she and the others had rescued a younger Lieutenant Virgil from a pair of Realian combat soldiers, then met up with Febronia and saved his life. Afterwards, they entered the Dabrye Mine to find the Elsa, which they did after fighting Mai Magus and her Leupold. They hurried to the Elsa, where they were reunited with the crew and Allen.

Unfortunetely, they had recieved terrible news about KOS-MOS. Her core had been severely damaged, and amazingly enough (or terribly if you looked at it differently) she had lost a significant amount of blood. They couldn't fix her at all, now that her core and black box had been damaged. So she lay there, sealed in her bed... possibly forever...

Shion looked at the figure in the bed again. And then another heartbreak. Cerberos was lying under the white sheets, unmoving, unbreathing, unresponsive. He had died as well. T-elos' attack had damaged his body far beyond repair. The flesh on his hands had been completely melted away, revealing silverish bone underneath, most like the alloy he had been fused with. His forearms were also terribly burned and missing flesh as well, revealing bone from the wrist to about halfway each. His special DX medicine bangle had been shattered from the attack as well. His torso was heavily damaged, and horribly burned and disfigured. His beautiful face... half of it was a black mess, and his hair had been burnt at the front, leaving a short, charred fringe.

At the moment, Shion could have cared less about how he looked. If only he were alive...

It seemed as if the bad news kept on coming. Their E.S.' Vessels of Anima had dissapeared, rendering them useless. Cerberos' A.M.W.S. had also become lifeless, no doubt due to the symbiosis it and its master shared. They were completely without their big guns.

Shion stood up and looked back at Cerberos' corpse. Corpse... It sounded so wrong. It was Cerberos' body, his _body_.

"Goodbye Cerberos," she whispered, tears dripping down her face. "I really did fall in love with you..."

-----

It had been many hours later when Shion and Allen returned from their trip to Miltia. They had found out a huge number of new and startling things about the past, and Shion learned more about her father, whom she began to hate. They found basic theory of KOS-MOS' OS in the younger Kevin Winnicot's room and she quickly made a copy of it to bring back to the professor. The old man and his assistant Scott began to work on it right away.

KOS-MOS had been completely repaired within a few days, but she still wouldn't boot up. Tony and the crew of the Elsa had transported Cerberos' body to a cryogenic freezer tube in the hanger so he wouldn't decay, and they would bury him as soon as they returned back to their own time.

_Later..._

"Professor, the reactor output is unstable," Scott said worriedly as they checked over their repairs on KOS-MOS. "Maybe we needed those parts that you had left over."

"Don't worry about little things like that!" the professor chided. "Besides, have you seen her physical composition now? She's nearly on par with Realians! You can't simply put a machine part in the body where a human organ would be! Your gauge is probably malfunctioning. Just give it a smack."

They continued to tweak KOS-MOS' condition, not noticing the Black Testament that appeared behind them...

-----

Shion walked beside Allen as they headed down to KOS-MOS' storage area. The man had nearly swallowed his tongue when Shion appeared on the display outside of the shower, half naked. He had told her in a stammering voice that the professor wanted her help on rebooting KOS-MOS, and she hurried out to comply. Suddenly, an explosion could be heard from the Elsa.

"What?!" Shion gasped, picking up the pace.

"It came from KOS-MOS' room!" Allen cried.

"Hurry up!" Shion yelled, running faster.

They ran into the hanger area just in time to see the professor and Scott lying on the ground, as the Black Testament walked out of KOS-MOS' maintenence room with her bed floating next to him. Captain Matthews, Tony and the rest were shooting at him, but the pale faced, red eyed Testament's barrier just shattered their bullets harmlessly. The Black Testament knocked Ziggy down and Shion caught sight of KOS-MOS' bed next to him.

"KOS-MOS!" she cried, leaping at the Testament known as Voyager.

"No! Shion!" chaos shouted.

Voyager stopped Shion in mid air and forced her to drop her M.W.S.. He then tried to attempt to choke her telekinetically. Shion began to gasp as she felt a force grip her throat.

"Let KOS-MOS..." she wheezed, "Let her go!"

She felt the life draining out of her, but all of a sudden KOS-MOS' bed activated the Hilbert Effect, flooding the area.

Suddenly, the side of KOS-MOS' bed shattered, and a slender hand gripped the hand that was mentally choking Shion. The bed completely opened and KOS-MOS hopped out and threw Voyager across the hanger, breaking a robotic arm off the wall in his flight. He mentally stopped himself from slamming into the gate door. KOS-MOS picked up her maintenence bed and hurled it with lightning speed at Voyager, but he used his purple barrier to disintigrate it. She teleported her plasma gun out and began to fire at the barrier, which absorbed the shots. She jumped to the hanger floor and faced off with Voyager, in front of the tube that held Cerberos' body. He used telekinesis to attempt to strike her with the robot arm, but she grabbed it and went to hit him with it in a swing. He dodged it and destroyed it with his powers.

Shion and the others ran down to the hanger area and stood with KOS-MOS as they faced the pale Testament. Jr. was in awe of KOS-MOS.

"Whoa, she's way more powerful than before!" he said in surprise. Shion ran up to KOS-MOS.

"You're alright!" she said, but Voyager suddenly gripped her by the throat again, dragging her through the air to him. Everyone made to attack, but he backed up, holding Shion in the air in front of him.

"Heh, heh, heh," he laughed ominously, stopping in front of a chilled over tube. "No sudden movements or her time is up!"

Time seemed to slow down for Shion. In slow-motion, she heard glass shatter behind her as Voyager turned around in surprise. She in turn, turned with him and watched as ice cold clouds shot out of the hole in the glass of the tube behind them. A silver object burst out of the tube, shattering the glass some more and a silver, skeletal hand gripped Voyager by the neck, its pointed fingertips digging into his flesh.

Voyager began to choke and he dropped Shion to the floor, while scrabbling at the skeletal hand with his own. It looked as if he forgot he had mental powers. Shion backed up to the others, who surrounded her protectively as the fleshless hand of Cerberos continued to strangle Voyager.

"Impossible!" Jin breathed, watching the horrifying scene. "But he's - I don't understand!"

Suddenly, the hand went slack and dropped Voyager, who floated down to the floor, hacking and coughing. The hand slid back into the cryo tube, and was covered in white clouds as the unit continued to pump freezing air into the tube, which escaped out of the holes.

"Cerberos?" Shion whispered, not noticing that KOS-MOS had attacked Voyager again, driving him out of the Elsa. She stumbled towards the cryogenic tube. "Cerberos? Are you alive?!"

She frantically pushed the buttons on the controls of the tube and it brought up vital signs. Her heart sank. Nothing. "I - I don't understand!" she cried in frustration. "What's going on!?"

She suddenly had a splitting pain in her skull and collapsed to the floor. The others ran up to her.

"Chief!" Allen yelled, picking her up. "Chief, wake up!"

"Shion!" KOS-MOS said worriedly, hurrying over. "She's fainted again."

"Quickly, get her up to the sick bay," Jin ordered. "We should give her something to allow her to rest."

Suddenly, the door to the cryo tube began to open, causing great billows of icy cold clouds to flow out. Everyone backed away nervously.

"He's dead, isn't he?" Tony asked hysterically. "I mean, what the hell is up with this guy!?"

Cerberos' body fell to the ground on his stomach, and lay there for several moments. Everyone could see the bones showing from his fleshless arms. Amazingly enough, his hair had completely grown back, and was covering his face. He lay there, unmoving for several minutes while everyone watched anxiously. His right arm twitched. They all held their breath as it moved, his metallic fingertips clicking against the steel floor as he began to prop himself up.

"Unbelievable..." MOMO whispered.

Cerberos sat up fully, and they saw that his face was completely healed, without a mark on it. His torso still looked wounded, but the burns were much smaller now, and they were more pink than searing red. His arms however, were still half-skeletal. Cerberos shook his head groggily and blinked his eyes open. He looked up at everyone, then at his freakish clawed bones on his fingers. He blinked some more.

"How long have I been out?" he rasped.

KOS-MOS walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Nearly a week," she answered softly. "Cerberos... how...?"

He furrowed his eyebrows. "For once... I don't know," he said quietly. He saw Shion in Allen's arms. "Is she okay?!"

KOS-MOS pushed him back down as he made to get up. "She fainted again," she said. "Cerberos! Try not to move so much! You are still very weak, and you have just come back from the dead!"

"I - what?" Cerberos stopped moving in confusion. "I thought I was just in another coma! Was I... Was I really dead?!"

"Yeah," Jr. answered solemnly. "T-elos killed you."

"That bitch."

Everyone laughed.

"Listen, we should get you up to the sick bay with Shion," Jin said, and everyone nodded. KOS-MOS helped Cerberos up. "I'll give you a check-up to make sure you're okay."

"Thanks Jin," Cerberos said gratefully as KOS-MOS led him through the hanger as they followed everyone else. "I definitely need some painkillers, my arms are killing me!"

-----

Shion awoke with a groan. "I fainted again, didn't I?" she mumbled to herself.

"Yes, you did."

She turned to see KOS-MOS smiling down at her at her bedside. She smiled widely back at her KOS-MOS.

"KOS-MOS!" she said, pulling the woman down for a hug. "You're okay now! You're okay!"

"I'm not the only one," KOS-MOS said with a smile, nodded over Shion's shoulders. Shion curiously looked behind her and squealed. Yes, squealed.

"Cerberos!" she cried, jumping out of the bed and into his. "You're alive!"

"So they tell me," he chuckled, wrapping his bandage-covered arms around her waist. "I still can't get used to the whole 'I died' thing."

"You're _amazing_," Shion said, snuggling into him. She then socked him in the gut. "You asshole!"

"OW!" Cerberos moaned, clutching his stomach. "What was that for?!"

"That's for sacrificing yourself _again_!" she scolded, lightly hitting his cheek. "You lovable fool!"

"Yes, you do have a hero complex," KOS-MOS agreed, settling on the bed with them. Her new frame built by the professor was significantly lighter than her previous ones, and more organic due to her metamorphosis.

"You too?!" Cerberos sighed. He pulled both women into a hug. "Ah well, I'm just glad that we're all okay."

He glanced at his bandaged arms, which were on the womens' shoulders. "Well, most of us."

"Mmm," Shion murmured, leaning against his chest. He could feel her beginning to fall asleep. Soon, her soft snores filled the quiet room. Cerberos looked at KOS-MOS' beautiful face.

"Wanna sleep?" he asked quietly. She smiled back at him.

"I'd like that very much," she replied, lying down beside him. He lay down as well, carefully bringing Shion down on his left, while KOS-MOS lay on his right.

"Sweet dreams KOS-MOS," he mumbled, as the heat from the womens' bodies made him incredibly drowsy. "Nigh'..."

"Good night my love," KOS-MOS whispered, stroking his cheek before she too, fell asleep.

-----

"Allen, remember what happened last time you screamed?" Jr.'s voice asked through Cerberos' subconsciousness. He began to wake up.

"Bu - but - BOTH?!" Allen's voice sputtered.

"That is one lucky dude," Tony commented. A thwack was heard and he cried out in pain.

"Quit pervin' you idiot!" Captain Matthews barked. "Ah, Cerberos, you're awake!"

"Morning," he grumbled back, raising his arm to scratch his head. He stopped when he saw the heavily bandaged appendage and sighed. KOS-MOS' hand snaked up and scratched his forehead for him. "Thanks."

"So what, is the Chief not good enough for you?" Allen asked furiously, stomping into the room. "You have to corrupt KOS-MOS as well?!"

"Uh, are you sure you want to make Shion angry again?" Cerberos asked nervously, looking down at Shion, who was waking up with an irritated look on her face.

"Shion and I both chose to be with Cerberos," KOS-MOS explained. "It is a satisfying agreement between the three of us, but if it helps ease your mind, Cerberos was initially unsure about it at first."

"Allen," Shion's sweet but wickedly frosty voice asked. Everyone froze. "Is there something you'd like to say?"

"I - But Chief," Allen pleaded. "You can't be okay with this! I mean, it's - it's wrong!"

In a flash, Shion had gotten out of bed, stormed up to Allen and slapped him on the cheek. Everyone stared at the two as Shion glared at Allen and Allen held his red cheek.

"I've never felt more right about anything in my life Allen!" she snapped. "I have my KOS-MOS and someone who unconditionally loves me and is willing to - and already has a few times - prevented me from being hurt by sacrificing his own body! God Allen, no one's ever cared about me this much before!"

"I do!" Allen shot back, then stuttered, "I - I mean..."

"Where have you been these past few months then?" Shion asked. "I've been so alone this whole time and yet no one came to see me, or make me feel better!"

She began to cry, and Cerberos hurried up behind her and hugged her. She glared at Allen from his embrace. "Cerberos was the only person who cared about my well-being!" she said defiantly. "I don't _hurt_ whenever he's around! Can't you understand that?"

She huffed. "For God's sake, he even cooked for me!" she said.

"You cook?" Captain Matthews asked with a raised eyebrow. "Hmm."

KOS-MOS stepped up beside Shion and Cerberos. "Shion, I'm sorry," she apologized. "I did not check up on your well-being these past months. I regret that now."

Shion sniffed and smiled at her. "No, it's fine KOS-MOS," she said. "What matters is that you're here with me now. And it's not like you could have up and left Vector without a fuss anyways."

KOS-MOS smiled. "Thank you Shion, that puts me at ease," she said, placing her hand on Shion's cheek. "You're still soft."

"I know," Shion said with a grin.

"But wet," KOS-MOS added, wiping Shion's tears away gently. "And your nose is excreting mucous."

Shion embarrasedly ducked her head away and wiped her nose on Cerberos' bandages, making him yelp in disgust. "Hey!"

"Oh, I'll change them for you, you big baby," she said. She turned to the others.

"I'm sorry Allen, but I really needed to get that off my chest!" she said sadly. Allen nodded slowly.

"I understand Chief," he said. "But even though I - It doesn't matter, because I'll fight by your side no matter what!"

She smiled brightly this time. "Thank you Allen," she said gratefully.

"Don't think you're without us," Jin said, as the others smiled at Shion. "You're not going to be alone any longer Shion."

Shion's smile began to hurt her face. _Yes... I know that now._

-----

"Well, these are healing up nicely," Shion announced as she changed Cerberos' bandages. "Everything seems to be regenerating quickly."

"Cool," Cerberos said as he leaned back on his bed while Shion tenderly wrapped his arms up. "Are you feeling better now, Shion?"

She finished wrapping him up and got onto the bed with him, snuggling up to his side. "The best I've felt in years," she admitted. "Everyone has been so supportive of me lately."

"They all love you, you know," Cerberos said, raising her chin with his stumpy bandaged hand as he stole a kiss from her. "I... love you."

Shion smiled into his lips. "I know I love you," she whispered, feeling her heart beat faster. They began to kiss more intensely, and soon she was underneath Cerberos as he attacked her tongue with his.

"This might get awkward," he muttered, pausing to look at the thick stumps that covered his arms. Shion giggled underneath him. Using a martial-arts move, she flipped him over so that she was on top, straddling him.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of all the work!" she said, unzipping her top.

-----

"Labyrinthos, huh?" Cerberos asked as he lay back in the couch as everyone stood around him. They were all having a meeting about invading the facility and stealing the Vessels of Anima. "I'm in if you're in."

He shared a secretive look at Shion, who returned it with a light blush on her cheeks. Earlier had been wonderful. And then KOS-MOS had come in after that, demanding that he break in her new body. It would be tough keeping up with two women.

"We have to," Shion said with conviction. "The Miltian Conflict will start in a few days, so we have to hurry."

"Not to mention that we can fight much better with our E.S.'," Jr. said. "I agree with Shion."

"First, let's make sure we're prepared for this infiltration," Shion said. "The online store has been updated somehow, and we should stock up on medical kits and whatnot."

Everyone began to file out, but Cerberos remained on the couch. KOS-MOS went to prepare her weapons and Shion walked up behind the couch. She leaned over and draped herself over Cerberos' shoulder. "Hey," she said softly.

He craned his neck and kissed her thoroughly. "Hey yourself," he greeted back.

"Are you sure you can handle this?" she asked worriedly, looking at his arms. "They're healing nicely, but you're hands are still skeletal."

"I'll be fine," he answered, tugging on her waist with some difficulty with his bandaged arms. She complied and eased herself onto his lap. "I'm more worried about you."

"I think I had a good enough nap after, you know," she said with a small smile. He grinned back.

"I know I did," he said, waggling his eyebrows. She pushed on his chest.

"Dirty boy," she chided playfully. He tugged her closer and kissed her, battering her tongue with his own. "Mmm."

"Think we have enough time?" he asked, as she dragged him to the sick bay.

"Of course!" she replied, pushing him in and locking the door behind her. KOS-MOS looked up from her spot near the bed. "Hi KOS-MOS!"

"Again?" the organic android asked in amusement. Shion didn't answer and just threw Cerberos on the bed, before snaking on top of him as she began to kiss his neck.

"Damn it Shion, if my hands were fully functional I'd be torturing you right now," Cerberos panted as she began to strip him of his clothes. The bed shifted with extra weight and his eyes bulged out as KOS-MOS joined them.

"But since you cannot, I think that we should torture _you_," she said in a husky voice, totally out of the norm for her. She helped Shion strip out of her clothes shyly, and took hers off as well. Shion continued kissing and massaging Cerberos' body while KOS-MOS' hand dissapeared around his thighs.

"Oh shit," he groaned as his eyes rolled up into his head.

-----


End file.
